The response from Silicon Valley in light of its use to manipulate the US election has not been uniform. After significant outside pressure, Facebook agreed to share the specific political ads bought by a Russian-linked agency to Congress. Twitter, however, continues to keep the ads bought on their platform by Russians a secret. BuzzFeed News reports:
Facebook pledged last week to reveal all ads being shown to its users, even those not appearing on advertiser profiles, after it was revealed that the company ran Russian-linked ads meant to influence the election. Twitter, however, will not commit to the same, and appears to have no plans to expose its so-called dark posts to public scrutiny.
Twitter, which had an outsized presence in the 2016 US presidential election thanks largely to then-candidate Donald Trump, currently hides promoted posts that don’t appear publicly on ad buyers’ profiles. And as of this writing it appears to have no plans to do otherwise.
The pressure is on for Twitter to take Facebook’s lead and release the ads bought on the site. Deputy director of Sunlight Foundation Alex Howard told BuzzFeed:
We hope Twitter will demonstrate leadership by acknowledging the issues dark ads on social media present for democratic states and work with the FEC and Congress to enact sensible legislative and regulatory reforms that for disclosure and disclaimers for online platforms that host paid political ads.