In the coming weeks, micro-blogging website Twitter will launch an “Transparency Centre” that will allow users to peek into who is advertising on the network, ad details. The centre will also have necessary tools to share user’s feedback with Twitter.
The new centre will increase transparency for all ads on Twitter, including political ads and issue-based ads. Twitter will also be improving controls for customers and strict advertising policies will be placed.
More specifically, the transparency centre will show: all ads that are currently running on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads, how long ads have been running, ad creative associated with those campaigns, ads targeted to you, as well as personalised information on which ads you are eligible to receive based on targeting
People can also report inappropriate ads or give negative feedback (i.e. “I don’t like this ad”) for every ad running on Twitter, whether the ad targets you or not. These steps will help Twitter quickly remove inappropriate ads from Twitter, and show you more relevant ads in your timeline.
And as Twitter has been regarded as one of the popular networks for running political campaigns, Twitter will now require electioneering advertisers identify their campaigns and will also change the look and feel of these ads and include a visual political ad indicator.
Electioneering ads are those that refer to a clearly identified candidate (or party associated with that candidate) for any elected office.
An example of what a future political ad may look like
In the Transparency Centre, there will be a special section for electioneering ads that will include: all ads that are currently running or that have run on Twitter, including Promoted-Only ads, disclosure on total campaign ad spend by advertiser, transparency about the identity of the organisation funding the campaign, targeting demographics, such as age, gender and geography and historical data about all electioneering ad spending by advertiser.
Twitter is also updating their policies for electioneering advertisers to require electioneering advertisers to self-identify as such and has come up with stronger penalties for advertisers who violate policies.
Twitter mentioned that the company is committed to stricter policies and transparency around issue-based ads.
“There is currently no clear industry definition for issue-based ads but we will work with our peer companies, other industry leaders, policy makers, and ad partners to clearly define them quickly and integrate them into the new approach mentioned above,” Twitter said in a blog post.
The new updates will be first rolled out in the US, and then globally.
