Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey said the decision was necessary to block President Trump but raises questions about the power of social media companies and how Twitter failed a healthy conversation encourage.
“This was the right decision for Twitter. We had a strange and unbelievable situation, forcing us to focus all our actions on public safety, ”the Chief wrote as part of a series of tweets, his first public comments since Twitter removed Trump’s account on Friday.
“That said, banning an account has very big consequences,” Dorsey said. “While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel that ultimately preventing us from failing to encourage a healthy conversation. And time for us to think about our activity and the environment around us. “
I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
Dorsey raised concerns about the collective power of tech companies to simulate someone like Trump together. Other companies, including Facebook Inc., Snap Inc. and Twitch at Amazon.com Inc., suspended the president’s accounts. Some of his supporters took their complaints to Parler, another social network, until Apple Inc. pulled over. and Google the service from their app stores and Amazon stopped providing cloud services.
Dorsey said he did not think this was coordinated but said he hoped the social media industry would move towards “decentralized status,” citing Bitcoin as an example of a technology that is not “under controlled or controlled by a single person or entity. ”
“Yes, we must all look critically at the inconsistencies in our policy and implementation. Yes, we need to look at how our service can promote anxiety and harm. Yes, we need more clarity in our assessment operations. All of this cannot erode the open and free global internet, ”he wrote.
Twitter blocked Trump’s personal account two days after a group of presidential supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress met to confirm the results of the presidential election. Trump had previously argued about the legitimate results on Twitter and expressed love for the violent public, violating the company’s rules. Twitter warned Trump that breaking another rule would result in a permanent ban.
The company an ultimate decision that the president’s tweets could be interpreted by his followers as a call to “reproduce the criminal activities that took place at the U.S. Capitol,” and so removed from his account completely.