Twitter is banning all ads from Russian news agencies RT and Sputnik effective immediately
Twitter announced on Thursday that it will ban all advertisements from Russian news agencies RT and Sputnik effective immediately.
"Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately," the company wrote in a statement posted on its blog.
"This decision was based on the retrospective work we've been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government."
Twitter announced the policy change one week before its representatives are set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with representatives from Facebook and Google, about how Russia exploited the platform to spread disinformation and propaganda during the 2016 election.
"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 company said. Sputnik and RT will still be able to keep their organic accounts, Twitter said.
The announcement could be an effort to pre-empt legislation introduced last week by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner, which aims to make the process of purchasing political advertisements more transparent - and more difficult for foreign entities.
The company said it will go a step further and donate the $1.9 million it is "projected to have earned from RT global advertising since they became an advertiser in 2011" and donate those funds "to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections."