Twitter’s war against conservatives and Republicans has some collateral damage — the company’s advertising business.
Twitter blocked the campaign account for Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) account from posting on August 7. The platform claimed that in posting a video showing the violent threats aimed at McConnell, Team Mitch violated Twitter policy on violence and harassment. Republicans did the only thing left to do: they stopped spending money on Twitter ads until further notice.
In a radio interview with NewsRadio WHAS, McConnell stated that “We’re in a major war with [Twitter] and they haven’t given up yet. And this shows you the political tilt, the left wing tilt of these big companies and how they try to suppress speech when it’s convenient.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee Director Kevin McLaughlin announced on Twitter that the committee was halting all Twitter spending. McLaughlin wrote, “Someone threatens to stab the Majority Leader, @TeamMitch posts the video and THEY get locked out.” Parker Hamilton Poling, the director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, announced that she had “directed the NRCC to immediately halt all spending with Twitter.”
Donald Trump Jr. pointed out that while Twitter would not allow Team Mitch back onto their account, Hamas’ account was working just fine. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote that his team would not be spending any money on Twitter ads either. When Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) complained about the White House’s involvement in stopping anti-conservative censorship, saying that it “wasn’t happening,” Cruz responded, “Uh, have you seen the @Team_Mitch Twitter account?”
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The GOP’s chief of staff, Richard Walters, added to the boycott. He wrote that the GOP would stop spending on Twitter’s platform as well until the company “addressed the disgusting bias.” Kayleigh McEnany the Trump campaign’s national secretary, tweeted “We at Team Trump have pulled our ad money.”
The Senate Leadership Fund tweeted, “Twitter get your act together.” It also suspended all spending on the platform. The Republican Governors’ Association wrote that it would join in the advertising boycott, emphasizing, “The anti-conservative bias and double standards must end.”
The GOP and President Trump spent more than $500,000 between the June 2018 and January 2019. By suspending their ads, the GOP committees are taking away a significant source of revenue for Twitter.
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