A war im sure we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that. 0. Hi emily could be here in the stream today should twitter allow political ads we ask what role social media plays in politics and what impact a ban on political ads will hop join the conversation tweet us at a. J. Stream or leave a comment on our live chat and you too will be in the stream. Twitters c. E. O. Jack dorsey recently announced that the company will no longer allow political advertisements on its platform the move the company says is to make sure politicians and political campaigns tell voters the whole truth its the 1st such declaration by any social Media Company and stands in stark contrast to facebooks policy but will the prohibition actually prevent the spread of misinformation but joining us to discuss this in hyderabad india. Bonnie shes a journalist with the hindu where she covers Technology Entertainment and lifestyle in london tom jarvis hes founder and managing director of Wilderness Agency thats a social media Strategy Company and in San Francisco california just a call to become founder and chairman of tech for campaigns an organization that helps political campaigns build a Digital Strategy welcome everyone to the stream its really good to have you here tom i want to start with our online audience our community there we tweeted this out char viewers not too long ago have you seen a political ad on twitter let us know for the show you can see the results there one day left for people to actually vote but the yes is 59 percent and the nos coming in very close after 41 percent so based on this unscientific poll but poll of our viewers twitter political ads dont seem like they were making that big of a splash online anyway with many people not being able to recall seeing any myself included in that how big of a deal is this decision this twitter decision in your view and does it matter. I think it does matter. I think its the 1st step for any Big Social Network like this to political advertising. From a monetary point of view from a financial point of view to. The numbers went great for twitter so in some respects this is a great piece of p. R. For them. They were only making you know 3 to 4000000 pounds last year on the. Midterm elections so from a from a Platform Point of view i think its its a really good move in terms of trying to drive more positive conversation on the platform and its a really great p. R. Exercise you know this really reminds me of. Where a couple of years ago when there were having such p. R. Problems so i think its a really good move from a p. R. Point of view. Less so in terms of the financials you know its not it will not twitter was a platform its interesting you say that here one of our Community Members tweeted mark is just for the money referencing market after birth of baseball while jack is socially responsible interesting take away from just i could see you smile at bad would you agree that this is just a p. R. Move or does it go beyond that is there something of substance that we can take away from this move. I mean. Earth as a percentage. Facebooks revenue political ads are a drop in the bucket i think you know its much higher than twitter is but thats because facebook makes you know many times more exponentially more money than twitter so i think they announced in the last 2 weeks that its less than one per cent of their revenue so this isnt their money and theyve definitely lost money on trips to washington him it lobby than. I dont think political ads are super are positive for facebook at this point. And i would agree that its mostly a p. R. Move i would go one step further id call it a slight of hand issue on twitter isnt paid to reach the issue on twitter is an organic reach problem not put organic in quote no box etc so they basically followed a problem that they didnt have and then shined the faceplate on the shine a spotlight on facebook. And so you know the issues that are on twitter are still there and theyre as bad as ever and you know bravo to them on a slate of hand p. R. Who but it doesnt make a difference in the political space or be in solving any problem that twitter actually have. So i want to share the decision of course it was sent in a twitter thread from jock just our audience all in the same page this was that decision weve made the decision to stop all political advertising on twitter globally we believe political messages reach should be earned not bought why a few reasons and jack goes into it its a whole thread but we pulled up this one here while internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers but power bring significant risks to politics or it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions divya ill direct this one to you its an idea of one team to change this influencing of votes that seems to be what its coming out of this week here whats your take on that. I believe there is definitely a sway that that Digital Space to me has and like jack said he talks about paying for a reach which is really what he wants to address and in this sense these ads does you know undermine the integrity of political discourse at its core and not that lately there has been much integrity to it. Honestly whether like this is a good move or a bad move i just believe it doesnt really address you know the main issue which is online literacy for a lot of people people have to know whether they should trust that ad and theres not enough information for people out there to especially that 300000000 users on facebook and 30000000 users on twitter just in india alone we need those reading as an example or do we have what you mean by a lack of Digital Literacy what would that look like in practice so obviously theres the big phrase that everybody likes to use fake news and just today actually twitter posted to a blog about that a minute belated media and thats the kind of content that you know does have the power to sway and once you monetize that content the reach is absolutely. Its unprecedented and i think that when you take advantage of that there is definitely repercussions that other people need to. And people dont know obviously like you know what the consequences of paying for reach is and they want to take things for granted every tweet me can be maybe theres then endorsement and i think that. We sources on how to differentiate the real from the fake is important very. Very if i could just jump in you know 2 points. That the good thing you know about paying for reach and jack a thing about paying for it but i think what we just talked about and you know 2 minutes ago is that no one is paying for reach on twitter politically 3000000. 00 is almost nothing when it comes to political ad spend 9000000000. 00 spent in the 28. 00 seen just us elections 9000000000. 00 only 600000000. 00 of that was actually on line so 3000000. 00 is is is up saluted nothing and so no one is paying for reach on twitter thats the thing the problem is our injury that is the problem so the other part i would say of i agree with that. Users need more information and transparency but what i dont agree with is this that ok so then we should have a ban no the answer is lets have more information and transparency and figure out a way to do that when you get it done but ill just charge this. When you do it than you should think about the people that actually suffer i think everyone is so obsessed with what we call here the top of the ticket in president ial and even some senate races but tucker campaigns works primarily with state legislative races and its those races and lesser well known candidates and less wealthy candidates theyre going to suffer if you take away political ads donald trump is going to be totally fine hes got tons of money he can get to give money to t. V. And he can put it in much less transparent places its incumbents its reality t. V. Stars that have earned to reach and its wealthy candidates that are going to be fine after this ban tom. Yeah i think to address that i think. You know the numbers bandied around for twitter are usually around the 20 midterms actually about 3 to 4000000 figure was the Major Political figures in the midterms in the us. You know but the problem is systemic you know 3 to 400000000 worth of advertising next year all on facebook alone from political individuals that doesnt include all of the conversation advertising so i do think. Yes those figures are low for twitter but i do say this but it does have an impact and i do think you know some of the steps that whatever make it now to. Look at the conversation on the platform and try to make it more positive are a good step forward. You know. This does feel like a good p. R. Exercise for jack but tom i want to pick up on jessicas 2nd point. This chart here from wards twitter spending by candidate and this is data that comes from twitter and you can see some of the top president ial u. S. President ial candidates here theyre spinning this is just in the thousands right and you scroll down a little bit and this is ad spending on facebook it is in the millions so you can see the discrepancy there and of course as i mentioned the president trying to just take his advertising elsewhere as of right now elsewhere could be face about because there are stiff 1700000. 00 spent on ads from january to october 2019 so what do you make of this point you say that theres its a good thing because there is something happening a change is happening but does it make an impact if facebook isnt making that change i think is 2 points here the 1st point is that twitter is not just burned out for timing from political figures theyve also. Political topics so theyve banned out of it. Ising around key topics that political figures or groups related to political organizations can advertise against so the numbers band in around are small when you look at individual campaigns but when you look at those overall topical topic data for advertising its a bigger group so they are making some commitment and i do think thats a great 1st that the 2nd point about facebook is very interesting you know theyve gone very quiet on this have as have google and its well known that theyre making a great deal of money and will probably make for misstep from google. In terms of do i think theyre going to make a move no i think you know weve seen a long history in our facebook stepping back on these things waiting for the p. R. Storm to. Ride itself out i think theyll do that in this case you know i think theyre in a position where they see this so i can jump in jessica. No i i i took on a clarify this because not making a ton of money from political ads just its just not the case like its a ton of money when you when you when you say 302400 1000000 but when you think about there are over overall revenue which is in the in the many like 30000000000 the its just not a lot not a High Percentage of their revenue so i just want to dispel this myth that is been restated twice now that facebook is doing this for the money or google who seems to not be in the conversation as much but no ones doing the strictly for the money if you were just to make a business decision then you would probably get out of political ads because the cost to them on p. R. Branding alone is probably not worth it but its just not its just clearly not about that at the about something bigger for the company and and probably mark. And i think i just want to go back to my earlier point which is they realize and and its been. Told again and last 2 weeks with the stanford study that theres about 10 times as many state political candidates advertising online than on t. V. And they concluded that one of the biggest impacts that digital political at the pad is just the sheer number of candidates that can now get their message out and hence actually have a chance to contest an election its actually the biggest impact will not be on president ial candidates it will not be the candidate that you and i all know by name it will be on these smaller candidates that dont have a way to get their message out still in the u. S. Almost 70 percent of campaign spend goes to t. V. So if we and Digital Advertising and politics that money is not going to go away its just going to go to a less transparent place thats harder for many people to. And then again you have incumbent wealthy candidate and people who have quote unquote earned their reach its mostly reality t. V. Stars that are going to be having an outsized advantage because they have the follower account anyway i want to pick up on the point that you made about this not hurting those at the top necessarily but the smaller candidates we got a comment from. The Foreign Editor at global times heres what he told the stream on that point a do nothing its serve the purpose of deterring the spread of misinformation by politicians in reality the big political players do not need to outwit find their voices they already have enough forwards who can make their dreams school viral organically and hes incisional tweet by a big politician irrespective of the information powell is true or false it is most likely to find a police in the news so this week the entire idea that politics or masses reach should be earned not bought a questionable one so davey ill give that one to you he says that this is not going to hurt the people that its perhaps intended to target when you make about point well i mean i definitely agree with him when he talks about you know. Just last week we had a very prominent person here in india who said that there was gold present in cows milk and a lot of people were ready to make life changing by natural decisions because of it so there is a genuine threat to society. And that and these are life altering decisions people are making at this what somebody says on a whim on on a public forum and i think you know that theres that ideal and very utopian notion. Ideal Democratic Society you know citizen. To have access to all facts in order to. Know what kind of society they should be living in but thats not true that we live in the real world and this information exists whether you ban ads or not. Picking up on that this is from someone watching live on you tube james fox says the problem isnt that they are removing political ads more so that they are allowing falsified information of opponents of political positions here and now to your head as im reading that is tom tom youre nodding your head and it raises a point that someone made a little bit earlier that this isnt necessarily about the money i think jessica you made that point so what then is that about because our community and our viewers say what this should be about is not allowing things that are blatantly false fake not true to be on these platforms yeah i think that a really complex issue the spread of misinformation you know where were in were in a storm now of misinformation across digital platforms and this down by twitter doesnt go far enough to affect but i dont think you know weve just seen this week in the u. K. With the start of the general election the conservative party. Being brought up for. A doctor video of a. Labor candidate so were seeing these tactics used to cross the border misinformation and doctored videos and content thats clearly untrue being used by Political Parties all across the world so i think really looking at the effects of this information and how this information is being spread i think is a really important part of the job now of these platforms. This is a 1st step and i think its a good one but but its a really small step i agree with you did you know you got our segment just going to finish up after. I mean i definitely agree with tom there is definitely a threat but i guess im i again emphasize my point earlier made about. The literacy literacy of tools that twitter netizens need to understand misinformation and again yes a utopian concept that people will always know whats wake and whats not so i think yes while the ban is a. While drop in the ocean and barely a slap on the wrist we need to really. Understand whats you know what the real issue is and thats access to the real resources the real facts the real conversation and we really need to work on for sure just because before you jump in there i wanted to share something with you maybe might make people think this is one persons view on how to do that how to create that literacy there on twitter he says if the issue is the danger that they can use can be easily peddled by Political Parties why not regulate those kinds of ads instead of a blanket ban that effects even legitimate political ads so thats one persons view hes not alone this is one other that ill share with you on twitter to hari says its not a business is job to regulate lying politicians since congress in her view is full of liars congress should enact laws that regulate the lying of Politicians Congress expects facebook to do what it doesnt even do itself so regulation where do you fall on that who should do the regulating yeah i i agree with tom i think that the complex issue its definitely a complex issue and i dont think theres. Solution yet but a band seems like sort of a lead the way out. And as far as regulation goes i think theres sort of 2 stacks of the platforms get all the attention but actually theyve done more in terms of. Sunlight being a disinfectant and showing information than google so i think both facebook and google need to do more on their own forms if theyre not going to in the short term backtrack political ad which t. V. Ads in the United States are actually not backtracked on broadcast news they should at least have a warning about that they can include more information about you know whos behind the ad and. How its been targeted that people can access without going into an ad archive or could be quote a like a nutrition label on the back of ads that anyone can see very quickly but ultimately i agree with twitter. Comment that yeah we need actual regulation and i think its absolutely a complicated issue its most complicated because its not clear who should do the regulating right now both from a overall standpoint but also whos actually has. A staff and a make up thats qualified to understand a bit issues and then actually hold them accountable in the congress im not sure that the f. E. C. You know as we sit here today im not sure anyone actually equipped and that that actually scares me the most or should be an International Body which of course is something that is hard to think about because who would that body be but i wanted to share this from you on twitter who says this is a very good topic at least politicians in countries like nigeria would no longer have an avenue to instigate against one another i advise facebook and instagram to emulate this but bring the point home tom that this is an International Issue so while twitter of course is a company thats a u. S. Company based here in the United States it is used everywhere so how would regulation work in that sense. I think thats one of the really complicated things you know in order to do this really effectively we need a global. Of this type of advertising. How that would work and who would do that are those really unclear you know weve tried things in europe. For the regulation point of view and its not really worked so i think its a real challenge but what we can do i think is allow the platforms to self regulate you know we tried that in the u. K. With the media businesses after leveson and it hasnt worked. So i think you know we swishy here today when we talk about facebook we talk about google we talk about the steps that have made i think the reality is these platforms. In the best place to do this but shouldnt be expect to have to do this im really this is for governments. To to look at a framework in which advertising on these platforms works. One thing i would add to that is i think when we as we sit here its easy to say the ban is good or bad and political advertising is good or bad but you have to actually define what is political advertising and my feeling that twitter has not bigger and out exactly what political advertising means so of course its going to be campaigns but thats the easy part is health care political Advertising Health care is basically the number one issue in any us campaign so that would mean planned parenthood is not allowed to advertise but it might also mean like a yoga studio or they healthcare its just not clear what the guy lines are going to be and. I would i part of that. Twitter is going to spend a lot of time not only are we figuring that out but policing it. As someone on you tube agrees with what youre saying saying that is a big gray area when it comes to. What is a political advertising i want to thank all of our guests of course for being part of this conversation it is one that will continue of course because on the 15th of november is when twitter will actually announce the regulations and then they will go into effect on the 22nd so lots more to keep an eye on thank you so much for joining us of course they were out of time for this part of the conversation but thank you to dave and just and of course star Online Community for your tweets steer you to comments and your video comments until next time well see online. Think the Prime Minister a. Should do to the british on the 31st of october and making this country the greatest place oldest person to function is delayed home follow the drama of bricks it on aljazeera the u. S. Is a Tipping Point scientists are telling us right now that we have just 12 years as the worlds leaders to agree on a solution people are taking matters into their. Lives. 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