Musk’s X to enable US political candidates, parties to advertise prior to election

Expanding upon our dedication to open expression, we will now permit political advertising. Initially launching in the United States, we will persist in enforcing distinct guidelines for sponsored political content.

San Francisco: Elon Musk-run X (formerly Twitter) has announced that it will allow US political candidates and parties advertise on the platform ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“Building on our commitment to free expression, we are also going to allow political advertising. Starting in the US, we’ll continue to apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts,” X said in a blogpost on Tuesday.

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The policies will include “prohibiting the promotion of false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election, while seeking to preserve free and open political discourse”.

Political ads were first banned on Twitter in 2019, after then-CEO Jack Dorsey argued that political message reach should be earned, not bought. Earlier this year, the company relaxed restrictions on “caused-based” ads, citing the importance of encouraging “public conversation around important
topics”.

Moreover, the company said that it will also provide a global advertising transparency centre so that everyone can review political posts being promoted on X, in addition to robust screening processes to ensure only eligible groups and campaigns can advertise.

In addition, X mentioned that it is “expanding our safety and elections teams to focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats”.

Opening to political ads might also boost X’s ad business, which has dropped 50 per cent since Musk took over the company last year.

Last week, former US president Donald Trump made a comeback on X after more than two years as he was banned in January 2021 on various social media platforms after the US Capitol riots.

Trump posted his first tweet on X with his mugshot, saying: “Election interference, Never surrender”.

Musk also reacted to Trump with a quote post saying: “Next-level”.