Twitter Employees Strongly Support Ban on Political Ads & Want Facebook to Follow Suit, While Facebook Employees Think Otherwise - Blind Survey

Last week Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced a policy to no longer run political ads on his social network, and according to a survey on Blind, the anonymous messaging app for tech employees, this shift has very strong support among his staff. Not only do 85% support it, a solid majority of 56% say the policy will have a positive effect on the 2020 election. Perhaps even more notably, 82% of Twitter employees who took the survey say Facebook should adopt a similar policy.

This is in striking contrast to a Blind survey conducted last month directed at Facebook employees, and its policy of allowing deceptive or inaccurate political ads: 51% of Facebook staff who took the survey said this policy might change the 2020 election, and only 54% supported having the policy in the first place. This strongly suggests less internal confidence within the Facebook ranks.

However, there's another surprise from this new survey, when Facebook employees were asked about Twitter's new policy:

Only 35% of Facebook employees supported Twitter's policy banning political ads, and still less (29%) think it will have a  positive effect on the election. Even more key: Only 29% of Facebook employees think their social network should adopt a similar policy!

Also note the results from Google employees who took the survey: They also strongly support Twitter's policy and Facebook's adoption of it, at rates 6-10% behind social network staffers. Google has mainly stayed quiet on this topic, but apparently most their staff have a definite opinion.

Comparing this survey and last month's survey, there seems to be an unresolved tension on this issue: Most Facebook employees believe a policy of allowing false political ads on their platform may alter the election, but at the same time, a strong majority of them are against disallowing political ads in general. (Perhaps most support better fact checking/removal of false ads.)

A Blind spokesperson tells me about 30% of Facebook and Twitter's entire staff use Blind, so this survey targets a large pool of each company. At the same time, 148 Facebook staffers took the survey, while 50 of Twitter staffers did. That is a small sample to extrapolate from, so interpret this as you will. Then again, when only 250+ Facebook staffers anonymously signed a petition opposing the company's false ad policy, it made the front page of the New York Times.

Data and infographics courtesy Blind.

Comments

[Sohbet]

Really useful information, thank you. I prefer twitter than facebook.

[sohbet]

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this article.