ANALYSIS | With its advertising business in crisis, Twitter relaxes the ban on political advertising

() — More than three years ago, Twitter banned political advertising and cause-related announcements amid concerns that politicians could pay to target social media users with false or misleading information.

Now, under the leadership of its new owner, Elon Musk, the company is relaxing that ban, a move that could provide Twitter with a much-needed sales boost at a time when Musk is urgently looking for new sources of revenue. But it does come with some risks: The policy change could expose users to threats the company has previously said it may not be able to address, including the spread of AI-created “deepfakes” and other sophisticated attempts to manipulate the platform.

On Tuesday, Twitter announced that would relax its ban on cause-related announcements, saying that “cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation about important issues.” Twitter added that it would “expand the political advertising we allow in the coming weeks,” with a commitment to share “more details as this work progresses.” The company said that its advertising policies in the future would resemble those of other media, including television.

Political advertising has never been a major source of revenue for the company: It made less than $3 million from political ads in 2018, the year before the ban went into effect. But Musk needs all the income he can find.

Since he took control of the company in October, numerous brands have halted their advertising on Twitter amid fears that Musk’s approach to content moderation could lead to ads appearing alongside hate speech and other inflammatory content. In November, as the company carried out mass layoffs to cut costs, Musk claimed that Twitter was losing $4 million a day.

Musk, who has previously expressed his distaste for advertising in general, tried to improve Twitter’s financial position by launching a controversial subscription option to pay for a verified account, among other paid benefits. But historically, advertising has made up nearly all of Twitter’s revenue, and replacing it could take a long time.

Welcoming the promotion of paid themes and political advertising on the platform could alleviate some of the effects of advertiser exit. It could also give new political candidates an edge over established incumbents by allowing them to increase their exposure through paid promotion.

But it can also lead to some of the unintended consequences former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey warned about when he first announced the ad restrictions in 2019.

At the time, Dorsey said that internet advertising is nothing like traditional forms of advertising because it allows for new ways of targeting people with specific messages. It also opens up new opportunities for malicious actors to use technology to game the system.

“Political ads on the internet present entirely new challenges for civic discourse: message optimization based on machine learning and microtargeting, unverified misleading information, and deepfakes. All at greater speed, sophistication and overwhelming scale,” Dorsey said.

Until now, Twitter’s approach to political advertising diverged from that of Facebook, which has drawn widespread criticism for its policy that exempts political ads from fact-checking, allowing politicians to lie in ads. Now, Twitter’s change could create an environment more similar to Facebook.

Disinformation and platform manipulation are not unique to social media or political messaging, Dorsey previously argued, but allowing money into the equation will complicate efforts to limit the impact of those damages.

Now, after Twitter laid off a large portion of its staff, including those who handle trust, security and content moderation, the company may be even less prepared to deal with the potential fallout.