Twitter Politics: New 'Cashtag' Lets Candidates, Groups Raise Funds
If you found Hillary Clinton's or Donald Trump's latest tweet particularly inspiring, you can now make a political donation directly through the social media app.
The Christian Science Monitor reported the service on Tuesday introduced a feature that enables political candidates and advocacy groups to raise money via its mobile application, and Jenna Golden, Twitter's director of political ad sales, predicted that at least a dozen White House hopefuls would begin using the new option right away.
To take advantage of the feature, campaigns must sign up for an account with the Square Cash payment platform and -- once verified -- can tweet a unique URL, called "cashtag," to request donations from supporters, the company explained. Donors, meanwhile, can choose to hit a "contribute" button to select a donation amount and add a debit card in order to support their favorite candidates and causes.
"Every day, voters, politicians, and government officials all over the world use Twitter to communicate in creative ways that enrich public discourse and increase government access and accountability," the service said in a statement. "By partnering with Square to enable donations through Tweets, and as the 2016 election season heats up, we've upgraded these tools through which citizens can raise their voices to champion causes and candidates they support," it added.
Beyond supporting the democratic process, Twitter may hope that the new feature helps its own bottom line given that its stock has gone down from about $42 a share in late 2013 to about $27 today.
Square, the application meant to facilitate money transferring, was co-founded by Jack Dorsey, who also helped found Twitter and currently serves as its interim CEO, the Washington Post pointed out. "That doesn't make the easy-donation system questionable or unhelpful, of course, but it does suggest that there may be a bit of public relations at play here," the newspaper commented.
Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, whom the Christian Science Monitor dubbed "(one of) the savviest digital fundraisers," and the Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, have already said that they would make use of Twitter's new in-message fundraising.
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