Twitter has announced that it’s bringing political ad rules to European Union member states, India, and Australia, following a rollout last year in the United States. The transparency effort consists of the Political Campaigning Policy, which defines political content, and the Ads Transparency Center (ATC), where users can dig into information about political advertisers.
The company has said that enforcement will begin from March 11th in the previously mentioned countries, although it is urging those who wish to advertise to register now. Once an organisation or individual has registered to post political ads, Twitter will send a letter to the registered address to verify the location of the advertiser; this will contain further instructions. Once complete, verified Twitter handles will be able to publish political ads.
Discussing the future expansion of political ad transparency, the social media firm said:
“Our teams will continue to build the operational and tooling support to expand our political advertising policies to other key markets throughout 2019. We strongly believe that meaningful transparency is the best path forward for all advertising products we offer, particularly those that are utilized in a political context.”
The European Union, India, and Australia are all holding important elections in April and May so anyone looking to sway the public vote in those countries in their favour through Twitter will have to get verified first.