As political pressure mounts on social media companies to say where ads are coming from, Twitter will reveal more information about political advertising on its platform.
Twitter said in a blog post on Tuesday it would clearly label political electioneering ads, which the Federal Election Commission (FEC) defines as an ad used to promote a specific candidate for elected office or affiliated party posted within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Electioneering ads can also include any ad clearly promoting a political candidate at any time.
The ads will have some sort of visual marker, likely a purple dot next to the user handle, and a purple box with the text "Promoted by" and the name of the sponsor.
In addition, the company will limit which criteria can be used to target people and will introduce a "stronger" penalty on those who do not abide by the new rules. The company did not say what the tougher standards or penalties will be.
I am not really sure how much this will help, since what really needs to happen is that Twitter identify and purge fake accounts and bots that simply promote misinformation to mislead the public.
However I guess we can view this as a good first step, and at least they are willing to do something.
Still it really needs to be up to the individual user to be vigilant and to do the legwork to research things they see on Twitter and make sure it is accurate.
Source http://ift.tt/2yStdG6
