Jack Dorsey has cut off a tiny revenue stream while focusing attention on rival’s inaction
Twitter’s announcement that it will ban all political advertising has prompted a wave of calls for
Facebook to do the same. This is despite the fact that Twitter’s political advertising operation had just 21 advertisers across the entirety of the EU during the parliamentary
elections this year, according to the site’s transparency report.
The
Twitter co-founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey, turned a weakness into a strength, cutting off a minuscule revenue stream in order to heap pressure on his main competitor. In the hours since Twitter’s announcement, support has come from voices as diverse as the US-based campaign group Muslim Advocates, the Open Knowledge Foundation thinktank and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.