Leading up to the U.S. Presidential Election, political advertisements on major social media platform has become a major talking point and the companies are trying to crack down on misinformation.
While Facebook’s stand on this topic hasn’t impressed anyone, Twitter decided to shut down political ads on its platform altogether. Now, it seems that music streaming platform Spotify is also following the lead of Twitter for the time being.
The company has announced that it will pause political ads amid the 2020 presidential race. Spotify, which is the world’s most popular paid music streaming service with nearly 141 million users, added that the pause would extend to Spotify original and exclusive podcasts as well.
In a statement confirming this development, the company said: “Beginning in early 2020, Spotify will pause the selling of political advertising. This will include political advertising content in our ad-supported tier and in Spotify original and exclusive podcasts. At this point in time, we do not yet have the necessary level of robustness in our processes, systems and tools to responsibly validate and review this content. We will reassess this decision as we continue to evolve our capabilities.”
This new policy will cover political groups such as candidates for office, elected and appointed officials, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and SuperPACS, as well as content that advocates for or against those entities. Spotify will also not sell ads that advocate for legislative and judicial outcomes.
However, the move only applies to Spotify’s ad sales, not advertisements embedded in third-party content, though those will still be subject to Spotify’s broader content policies.
