Twitter ads to change after fiasco

Twitter will roll out new controls as soon as next week to let companies prevent their ads from appearing above or below tweets containing certain keywords.

Twitter to let its advertisers avoid promoting the brand above or below tweets containing specific keywords. (REUTERS)

Twitter Inc will roll out new controls as soon as next week to let companies prevent their ads from appearing above or below tweets containing certain keywords, the social media platform told advertisers in an email on Thursday.

The new controls are part of Twitter's effort to reassure and lure back advertisers that have pulled ads off the platform since it was purchased in October by billionaire Elon Musk, amid reports from civil rights groups that hate speech has risen since the acquisition and after several banned or suspended accounts were reinstated.

Twitter earns nearly 90% of its revenue from selling digital ads. Musk recently attributed a "massive drop in revenue" to civil rights organizations that have pressured brands to pause their Twitter ads.

In a call on Thursday with an advertising industry group, a Twitter representative said the platform was considering bringing its content moderators, many of whom are contracted through third-party vendors, in-house, according to a source familiar with the remarks.

The Twitter representative said bringing content moderators in-house would allow the platform to invest more in moderation for non-English languages, according to the source.

The comments come after Twitter's new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, told Reuters that the platform would lean more heavily on automated content moderation. Irwin also said that Twitter's recent layoffs, which cut 50% of staff, did not significantly hurt its moderation team and those working on critical areas like child safety.

The email to advertisers on Thursday, which was reviewed by Reuters, said a revamped version of Twitter's subscription service called Twitter Blue would begin rolling out on Friday.

The subscription will allow accounts to receive a verified check mark. Accounts for individuals will get a blue check, while gold and gray check marks will denote business and government accounts, according to the email.

The subscription price will be $7 per month on the web and $11 per month on Apple devices, the email said.

Twitter also told advertisers that it removed ads from profiles mentioned in a Washington Post article on Tuesday, which reported that ads had appeared on the Twitter accounts of white nationalists.

Snap Inc, which owns photo messaging app Snapchat, has paused its advertising on Twitter while it investigates the issue, a spokesperson told Reuters.

The accounts were not part of "amnesty reinstatements," Twitter's email said, referring to Musk's tweet last month that Twitter would reinstate suspended accounts that have not broken the law.

"We will not be reinstating bad actors, spam accounts and users that engaged in criminal/illegal activity," Twitter's note to advertisers said.

Twitter, which has lost many members of its communications team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.