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 platformโs decision to ban ads discussing abortion, gun reform, climate change, and other issues central to the Democratic Partyโs midterm agenda.
โAfter a thorough review of ad policies across its linear networks and streaming platforms over the last few months, Disney is now aligning Huluโs political advertising policies to be consistent with the Companyโs general entertainment and sports cable networks and ESPN+,โ Disney said in a statement to Axios on Wednesday.
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 โcontent 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 โin 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 Huluโs โunwrittenโ 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, โWe are at an absolutely critical time in our nationโs history.โ He continued, โHow are voters supposed to make informed choices if their candidates cannot talk about the most important issues of the day?โ