Over the course of the 2016 presidential election, political campaigns took to Twitter like never before, using extensive ad buys and promoted tweets to spread their message. According to a Medium published last night, the Trump campaign attempted to purchase a promoted hashtag, and was shut down by Twitter.
Gary Coby, the Trump Campaign’s Director of Digital Advertising and Fundraising, outlined in his post that the campaign signed a $5 million spending commitment in August following the Republican National Convention.
Coby explained that the campaign planned to launch specific emoji attached to the hashtag #CrookedHillary — a hand holding a bag of money, and later to a figure of a person running with a bag of money. In the days before the first debate, Coby learned that the promoted hashtag was not approved.
“We ultimately decided not to permit this particular format for any political advertising”
An official for Twitter wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the conversations that it held, but it did release the following statement: