Twitter expands political ad policy to EU, India, and Australia

Following in the footsteps of Google and Facebook, Twitter today announced it’s expanding its political campaign policy and Ads Transparency Center to all European Union member states, India, and Australia.

Launched in the U.S. last year, the Ads Transparency Center allows anyone — whether a Twitter user or not — to see all of the Twitter campaigns an advertiser has run, the demographics targeted, and the amount of money spent on those ads.

As part of these efforts, Twitter said it will also screen advertisers that run political campaign ads on its platform. The company has started accepting applications from advertisers interested in being certified and said it will begin enforcing transparency policies in the EU, India, and Australia on March 11.

Twitter classifies political campaigns as ads that advocate for or against a candidate or political party. Any ad that seeks to sway voters or solicit financial support for an election, referendum, or ballot measure also falls under the political campaign umbrella.

Today’s announcement comes weeks after both Facebook and Google began expanding their political ad transparency report and library to more countries, including India. The expansion also arrives as several of the included countries head into general elections. Google announced late last year that it would be enforcing similar rules in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

Governments are increasingly pressuring tech companies to become more transparent and assume greater responsibility for the influence their products and services have on democracies.

Twitter said today that it is working on bringing its political advertising policies to other key markets this year. “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 company said in a statement.