Twitter Bans Ads From Russian Media
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The tech company cited a report from the intelligence community in their decision.
Twitter announced Thursday that they were planning to "off-board" advertising from any accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, two Russian news sources.
This decision comes after a report from the U.S. Intelligence Community that concluded RT and Sputnik acted on behalf of the Russian government and attempted to interfere with the U.S. 2016 presidential election using social media based propaganda.
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"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," the company said.
The tech company says it plans to take the money they are projected to have earned from RT's global advertising since 2011, $1.9 million, and instead donate that to research about civic engagement with "an initial focus on elections and automation."
Twitter also estimates that $274,100 of that money was spent on U.S.-based advertising in 2016. Both RT and Sputnik will remain as organic users on the platform, however, and can keep tweeting on their own accounts.
This announcement also follows a recent advertising transparency initiative that Twitter announced Tuesday.