Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's announcement Wednesday that Twitter will stop accepting political advertising starting Nov. 22 was not greeted warmly by President Trump's campaign, which apparently believes banning all political ads will "silence Trump and conservatives."
The
Democratic presidential candidates vying to unseat Trump, on the other hand, largely praised the decision — even though, as National
Republican Senatorial Committee senior adviser Matt Whitlock noted (on Twitter, naturally),
Democrats "do significantly more advertising on Twitter than we do." The Democrats said
Facebook should follow suit.U.S. political campaigns expressing interest in a major social media platform's political advertising policy makes sense. Less clear is why
Russian state media cares.
"Why on earth would RT, Russia's propaganda outlet (which has been designated as a foreign agent by our own DOJ), find Twitter's ban on political ads in the U.S. to be 'URGENT'?" asked Asha Rangappa, a former
FBI agent and
CNN analyst.Maybe it's Dorsey's inclusion of the phrase "democratic infrastructure"?