Democratic Center Party complains about advertising for journalist Daniel Coronell's podcast

During the last days of November 2021, an advertising campaign for the podcast 'Uribe acorralado' appeared on Twitter, where Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell reveals how he conducted the investigation into the alleged crime of witness tampering of which former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez is accused.

The campaign's advertiser was Spotify, the audio platform that produced the series. In addition to its own ads, Spotify promoted individual tweets that publicized the podcast - for example, from journalists Daniel Samper Ospina and Camila Zuluaga.

The Democratic Center, the party of former president Uribe, protested to Spotify and Twitter about the advertising. According to excerpts of the communications reported by El Tiempo, the political party complained to Twitter that it was violating its advertising rules on the platform, which prohibit the promotion of political content. The Democratic Center also pointed out that in the past Spotify had prevented it from advertising podcasts "and content in general about information relevant to the public".

The claim has the following rationale: Twitter's rules prohibit any advertisement by candidates, political parties or elected or appointed government officials. In addition, the platform prohibits the advertising of content of a political nature, defined as content that refers to a candidate, political party, government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, law, regulation, directive or court ruling. 

Twitter, however, includes an exception for "news publishers". Under this rule, advertisements with political content are allowed, but without promoting or attacking candidates, parties or government officials. To be covered by this exception, Twitter requires that the advertiser is in the business of publishing news, has three million unique visits in the world or one hundred thousand if the advertising is directed to a specific country. Spotify, meanwhile, bans political ads on its platform "until further notice". 

At the date of publication of this text, the advertising of 'Uribe cornered' continued to be active on Twitter, as it is a journalistic content of public interest, apparently covered by the exception of the platform.

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