To define political content and identify owners of them, micro-blogging site Twitter has expanded its political ads policy and transparency approach into all European Union member states including India.
Twitter will be including a visual label and disclaimer information on promoted content from certified accounts. This will allow users to easily identify political campaign ads and to know who paid for them, said Twitter in a blog post.
The new policy will be effective from March 11, after which only certified advertisers will be allowed to run political campaigning ads.
In order to advertise, an advertiser must have a certified advertiser account and provide their information.
For political parties registered with ECI in India, they need to submit registration certificate or founding documents of the political party. In case of an organisational advertiser, it needs to provide Corporate Identification Number (CIN) or document showing proof of the business’ address.
Whereas for Individuals or candidates, they need to provide Government-issued ID containing the address of the individual.
If an ad is reported and taken down from Twitter, it will be archived in the Ads Transparency Centre within approximately 24 hours, the blog added.
If the account was suspended, tweets will not be shown in the Ads Transparency Centre, which allows anyone across the globe to view ads that have been served on Twitter.
Last year in May, Twitter had Political Campaigning Policy in the US to provide clear insight into how we define political content and who is advertising political content on Twitter.
The election is scheduled to take place in India in the next couple of months.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have come under question for not doing enough to combat fake news and propaganda politics online. The govt has also accused Twitter of not being fast on removing objectional content from its platform.
Govt has summoned Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over measures taken to ensure the safety and security of the users and allegations that the social media site is discriminating against “nationalist” posts on its platform.
