Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After weeks of mounting pressure from Democrats, Hulu will begin accepting political issue and candidate ads, according to a new report from Axios on Wednesday.

Disney, a majority owner of Hulu, made the decision amid a controversy over the streaming platformโ€™s decision to ban ads discussing abortion, gun reform, climate change, and other issues central to the Democratic Partyโ€™s midterm agenda.

โ€œAfter a thorough review of ad policies across its linear networks and streaming platforms over the last few months, Disney is now aligning Huluโ€™s political advertising policies to be consistent with the Companyโ€™s general entertainment and sports cable networks and ESPN+,โ€ Disney said in a statement to Axios on Wednesday.

โ€œDisney is now aligning Huluโ€™s political advertising policies to be consistent with the Companyโ€™s general entertainment and sports cable networksโ€

The fight went public this week after the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Democratic Governors Association revealed that Hulu rejected campaign ads centered on hot-button issues like gun rights. Cable, broadcast, and other social media platforms ran the ads, but Hulu refused due to โ€œcontent relatedโ€ problems. The controversy inspired the #boycottHulu hashtag across social media.

Still, Disney is withholding the right to request the campaigns make certain edits to ads โ€œin alignment with industry standards.โ€

The Democratsโ€™ back and forth with Hulu boiled over into national politics this week. But a progressive New York congressional candidate โ€” Suraj Patel โ€” was the first to make Huluโ€™s โ€œunwrittenโ€ sensitivity policy public earlier this month.

In a letter to Hulu and Disney CEOs, Patel called on the companies to overturn the ad content policies, writing, โ€œWe are at an absolutely critical time in our nationโ€™s history.โ€ He continued, โ€œHow are voters supposed to make informed choices if their candidates cannot talk about the most important issues of the day?โ€

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