Twitter Offered 15 Percent of Election Advertising Share to Russian Media
Twitter was reportedly willing to sell as much as 15 percent of its U.S. elections advertising quota to a Russian media network, one that was described by the U.S. intelligence community as "the Kremlin's principal international propaganda outlet."
That's a complete opposite from this year's Twitter, as the company has just blocked Russia Today and Sputnik from buying ads according to their announcement last week on Thursday, Oct. 26.
Last year during the 2016 election season, the social media platform was not as coy. It looks to be just the opposite, in fact, according to an email obtained by BuzzFeed. Twitter was offering up to 15 percent of "Share of Voice (SOV)" on the platform, for the right amount of course.
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For a sum of $3 million, Twitter was willing to give Russia Today 15 percent SOV. They were also selling the services of their content support specialist, elections specialist, and exclusive beta features for an additional $1 million, as well.
It was perhaps a good thing that Russia Today turned down the offer, according to Engadget. For their part, Twitter declined to comment on "any advertiser, even a former advertiser," but did not dispute the legitimacy of the email.
Twitter's recent ban of Russian media outlets from buying advertising came partly as a result of recent findings by the U.S. intelligence community.
"Early this year, the U.S. intelligence community named RT and Sputnik as implementing state-sponsored Russian efforts to interfere with and disrupt the 2016 Presidential election, which is not something we want on Twitter," the social media service explained in their announcement.
It's the same community that called Russia Today "the Kremlin's principal international propaganda outlet." Twitter's ban came as lawmakers grilled representatives of Twitter, Google and Facebook for their platforms' possible role in influencing the 2016 elections.
Minnesota Senator Al Franken echoed what many must be thinking now: "I want to understand why no one seems to have caught on to the Russian effort earlier," he said at the committee hearing.
