X to run political ads again, reversing Twitter’s 2019 ban — plans to expand safety; elections teams to combat ‘misleading’ content

Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, announced on Tuesday that the platform will once again allow political advertising campaigns.

In a recent X blog post, the company revealed that it would be reversing the ban on all political advertising that was implemented under the leadership of former CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019.

At the time, Dorsey claimed that political reach “should be earned, not bought.”

“We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally,” Dorsey stated as the reason for the ban. “A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.”

With the 2024 presidential election approaching, Musk’s team announced it would no longer adhere to that ban and explained that the platform would expand its safety and elections teams to combat “manipulation” and other “misleading” content.

“More than half a billion people from around the world gather on X to talk about their interests in real-time, and that includes elections. X enables people to directly engage on important topics with elected representatives, local or national leaders and fellow citizens,” the company stated on Tuesday.

X said that “to get in front of a range of tactics that people use to target” the election process, it will “hire the right people, update our policies and evolve our product.”

The company is currently hiring additional staff to work on its safety and elections teams. It noted that it will be updating its civic integrity policy “to make sure we strike the right balance between tackling the most harmful types of content—those that could intimidate or deceive people into surrendering their right to participate in a civic process—and not censoring political debate.”

X reiterated its enforcement philosophy, “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach,” which was adopted in April.

“We believe Twitter users have the right to express their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship,” X said in April. It noted that the social media platform will restrict the reach of posts “that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

While the platform is bringing back political advertising, it will not allow campaigns to promote “false or misleading content, including false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in an election.”

It also added that its Community Notes feature, which allows groups of users to add context to posts, will be enabled on political promotions as well. According to X, the feature has already had an impact.

“People are on average 30% less likely to agree with the substance of a post after reading a Community Note about it, and they’re also less likely to reshare it,” X said.

X users can see which political posts are promoted on the platform through its global advertising transparency center.

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