Twitter seems eager to turn the page in the way it treats political candidates – but apparently, it’s one where none of its prior, potentially harmful actions account for anything significant.
Twitter has now pledged to verify all candidates in US congressional and gubernatorial elections in 2020 – but the process will not be recursive.
In other words, those like US conservative candidate Laura Loomer and her previous treatment by Twitter – banning her permanently from the platform – will not be reversed. Twitter will uphold its previous decisions and never give a chance to candidates it previously banned to allow them back on the platform.
In other words, politicians like Loomer will not be considered in Twitter’s declared effort to ensure what it calls “a level playing field.”
A Twitter representative spoke to Politico about the new policy, apparently meant to promote Twitter as a social media platform that provides equal access to all candidates, regardless of their politics and ideology. Nevertheless, the issue of those banned before this latest policy announcement has not yet been addressed.
In the meanwhile, reports said that candidates in other parts of the world who had been previously banned by Twitter might reasonably expect the same fate as Loomer – such as Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin in the UK, who ran for European Parliament elections earlier in the year.
Twitter’s policy is not new, as other giant social media sites like Facebook have employed it before.
Facebook – as the largest social media platform in the US and globally, and one that’s most under fire – is said to have so far been most resistant when it comes pressure to go Twitter’s way and ban all political ads.
But that doesn’t mean Facebook’s not feeling the pressure, as it looks to comply by introducing controversial practices like “fact-checking” and also, allowing political ads but limiting the number a candidate can run on the platform.
