Here’s your ‘Fake News,’ Mr. Trump
Hello, Mr. Trump.
We know you love your Twitter. We know you take Twitter very seriously.
So please pay careful attention to this news.
Twitter on Thursday banned two Russian state-run websites from advertising on its platform, citing their alleged spread of “fake news” and involvement in Russia’s meddling in last year’s presidential election.
Advertisements for the two sites, RT—or Russia Today—and Sputnik International, were “off-boarded” immediately. Twitter said the approximately $1.9 million it made from RT since it became a client in 2011 would be donated for research on how to better use the microblogging site in “civic engagement and elections.”
The Silicon Valley titan specifically cited the U.S. intelligence community’s assertions that Russia directly interfered in the election in order to favor Republican President Donald Trump, and that RT and Sputnik served as conduits for misinformation.
Here’s the full text of Twitter’s press release:
Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately. This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government. We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter.
Early this year, the U.S. intelligence community named RT and Sputnik as implementing state-sponsored Russian efforts to interfere with and disrupt the 2016 Presidential election, which is not something we want on Twitter. This decision is restricted to these two entities based our internal investigation of their behavior as well as their inclusion in the January 2017 DNI report. This decision does not apply to any other advertisers. RT and Sputnik may remain organic users on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules.
Twitter has also decided to take the $1.9 million we are projected to have earned from RT global advertising since they became an advertiser in 2011, which includes the $274,100 in 2016 U.S.-based advertising that we highlighted in our September 28 blog post, and donate those funds to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation, with an initial focus on elections and automation. We will have more details to share on this disbursement soon.
You’re welcome, Uncle Dotard!
