Twitter partners with Square in allowing Political donations

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Twitter has evolved into the favorite platforms for prominent people around the world to reach large audiences with key messages and soundbites. A 2015 report by Burson-Marsteller revealed that 86 percent of all 193 United Nations (UN) governments have a presence on Twitter. One hundred and seventy-two heads of state and government have personal Twitter accounts and only 27 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia-Pacific, do not have any Twitter presence.

In May 2015, the @POTUS account was created and broke the record for the most followed Twitter account ever. The @POTUS account was able to amass a record 1 million followers in five hours. As it so happens, several individuals are gearing to be the next owners of the @POTUS account, with the United States set to hold elections in 2016.

Twitter has now made it easy for followers of the various candidates to donate via Tweets. Twitter Inc. has partnered with mobile payment company square in undertaking the venture. Incidentally,  both Twitter and Square share a CEO, Jack Dorsey. Jack Dorsey is one of the co-founders of Twitter, who at the moment is serving as the Twitter’s interim CEO. The service works by allowing a user to select the amount they wish to donate, pay via debit card and submit the donation information. According to Bloomberg Politics, Square will charge 1.9% of the donation amount in transaction fees but will not slash the fees from the donation. Twitter will on the other hand allow interested politicians to promote tweets seeking donations.