Twitters political ad ban raises one big issue: what exactly is an issue?

Twitter is finally doing something popular: banning political ads. Yesterday, CEO Jack Dorsey announced that his company will no longer allow sponsored tweets promoting political campaigns. It will also prohibit the much broader category of “issues” ads, with a few exceptions. “This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach,” said Dorsey. “Paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle.”

The decision was widely supported, according to a survey from consumer polling group CivicScience. But it also sparked immediate debate, confusion, and uncertainty — because Twitter is trying to draw hard policy lines around the nebulous...

Continue reading…