The debate over free speech and politics on social media has been overdone and yet no common ground has yet achieved. Online political ads have been in the spotlight since the 2016 US presidential election when Mr Trump was more successful in spreading viral political ads than Democrats were. This led to the debate on how social networks can distribute and amplify misinformation and false content also came under scrutiny after Russians used Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to plant divisive messages in 2016 to influence the American electorate. That has since prompted debates about what ads and other content companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google should permit on their sites. And to make this debate heated, Twitter now announced that will no longer accept political ads starting November 22. “We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought,” said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, on Wednesday. The ban on political ads, however, does not eliminate the toxicity that Twitter faces because of political speeches on its platform as it also has to determine what ads count as political and what not? And there are other several parameters such as fact-checking of pieces of information that might be political in nature but actually aren't.
      Only time will tell if this scrutiny over political ads has reaped any benefit or not as Technology- and social media especially- has a crucial role in preserving the integrity of our elections and our free expression.