Twitter Will Now Label Political Ads

As Congress moves to make legislation enforcing transparency and honesty in online political ads, Twitter has taken it upon itself to to do the same.

Twitter announced in a blog post (as pointed out by CNBC) that they will “clearly label” political electioneering ads, using a visual marker to show which tweets are paid for by political entities. The visual marker will likely be a purple dot around where that blue Verified check sits, so get ready for the color purple to be ruined for you.

In line with the legislation that Congress is pushing, Twitter will have a database cataloging the various political ads, including such information as who paid for them, how much they cost and which users they’re targeting. From CNBC:

The company will also launch a “transparency center,” which will show all ads—political or not—currently running on Twitter, and how long the ads have been running. The database will show users which ads have been targeted toward them and the personal criteria used to target them.

Congress has been pushing to legislate the “Honest Ads Act,” which calls for many of the features that Twitter is announcing. Twitter will begin by rolling out this feature in the United States, but will expand to global markets afterwards.

Find Twitter’s full blog post here.