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Twitter has announced that it will ban all political advertisements on the platform starting Friday, November 22. Announcing the move on Wednesday, October 30, CEO Jack Dorsey said it was important that politicians earn their reach and not buy it.  Dorsey said purchasing reach was not different from forcing political messages on people and this has the capacity to influence voting patterns thus affecting millions of lives. "A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money. "While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions, Dorsey said in a statement. While defending the new decision, Dorsey noted that it was not aimed at curtailing freedom of expression but it was a launchpad for regulating political advertising, a task he described as "very difficult to do". "In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are in progress, but not enough. "The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field," said the Twitter boss. The decision was, however, on the other hand sharply criticized by US President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign brigade that termed it dumb. Campaign manager Brad Parscale said the move will cost Twitter a lot of revenue but he was also quick to claim it was an attempt to silence Trump. "Twitter just walked away from hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue, a very dumb decision for their stockholders. Will Twitter also be stopping ads from biased media outlets who will now run unchecked as they buy obvious political content meant to attack republicans? "This is yet another attempt to silence conservatives since Twitter knows President Trump has the most sophisticated online program ever known," said Parscale. Trump is well known to use the micro blogging tool to hit at his critics as well as carry out political campaigns.