An update on Canadian political advertising

We recently announced that Twitter is working proactively to support and protect the Canadian election through the expansion of our political advertising transparency efforts to Canada. 

During the pre-election timeline — which began June 30th and ends the day the election is officially called — we are prohibiting all regulated political ads in Canada. However, once the writ is dropped, we will allow regulated political advertising for the election period, including issue advocacy ads, in compliance with Canadian law. 

Today, we’ve detailed some additional steps advertisers can take to prepare for the federal election since we don’t know when the election will be called.

Organizations seeking to advertise political content must undergo a thorough certification process in order to advertise on Twitter. Our Political Content Policy for Canada is now available and organizations can begin the registration process by filling out this form. 

Political content advertisers must provide Twitter with the following:

• Name and email;
• Ability to cross reference their identity with the Elections Canada Political Participant Registration Database; and
• Corresponding documents for each cases outlined here.

Once certified, advertisers will be prompted to fill in “paid for by” and “authorized by” disclaimers. 

All political ads are viewable in our Ads Transparency Center, where you will be able to see details such as billing information, ad spend, and impressions data per Tweet. Additionally, we will be showing demographic targeting data for the ads being served. The ads will exist indefinitely within the Transparency Center, where they are viewable by anyone in the world, regardless of whether or not they own a Twitter account.

For more information, visit our political campaigning advertising policy FAQs page.