Following Elon Musk’s exposure of sensational data about Twitter, the company’s founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey on Tuesday acknowledged responsibility for problematic content judgments made while he was in charge of the company. Dorsey claimed in a blog post that Twitter had too much potential to make content judgments under his supervision. Users should have had greater control over what they see on the internet, and Twitter did a bad job of developing tools to handle that.
He meanwhile maintained that there was never any political motivation behind his company’s decisions and that it was his lone’s fault. “The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defence mechanisms… I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company,” he said.
There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified. I’II start with the principles I’ve come to believe based on everything l’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:
— jack (@jack) December 13, 2022
Regarding former President Trump’s permanent ban from the platform, which Musk has since restored, Dorsey contended saying that “we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.” “I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time,” Dorsey wrote.
“Of course mistakes were made. But if we had focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us, and moved much faster towards absolute transparency, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation of needing a fresh reset (which I am supportive of). Again, I own all of this and our actions, and all I can do is work to make it right.”
Further, he shared his views on how he can fix the issues that were revealed on Twitter Files. “I’m a strong believer that any content produced by someone for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to delete it. It should be always available and addressable. Content takedowns and suspensions should not be possible,” he wrote.
I don’t want to edit everything into 280 char chunks, so here’s the rest: https://t.co/eWVwDFxq7e
— jack (@jack) December 13, 2022
He went on to criticize efforts by the government and huge companies to influence and control the public debate, and he reiterated that tweet authors should be the only ones who can delete their own tweets. Dorsey meanwhile also opined and wished that Twitter and every company should become uncomfortably transparent.
“The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything,” he said. “If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof,” he noted in the blog post that was made public on December 13.
Recently, former US President Donald Trump thanked Elon Musk for allegedly exposing how the FBI and the Justice Department colluded with Twitter officials to manipulate the 2020 US Presidential elections. “ELON: The Twitter releases are a revelation in that they show, in a very powerful fashion, the FBI and ‘Justice’ illegally colluding, proving conclusively, in one more very powerful way, that the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged & Stolen. What everyone is REALLY waiting to see, however, is the Twitter information and thought process leading up to the time of the so-called ‘Election’, and ultimately the ‘Deplatforming’ of the President of the United States. Big moment in history. Thank you!” he said.
On December 9, the third tranche of confidential conversations between top Twitter executives was released on the micro-blogging platform. Journalist Matt Taibbi pointed out that the ‘intellectual framework’ to de-platform former US President Donald Trump was laid in the months preceding the January 6 incident in Washington.
The first part of ‘Twitter Files 3.0’ exposed how the likes of Vijaya Gadde (former Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust at Twitter) and Yoel Roth (former Global Head of Trust & Safety) were making decisions based on whims and fancies. The senior executives of Twitter also were in constant touch with federal agencies ahead of the 2020 US Presidential elections.
As reported earlier, it was brought to light that many of the Twitter employees also wanted ban imposed on Donald Trump’s account. The ban was executed despite the Safety Team of Twitter concluding that Donald Trump did not violate any of the platform’s rules.
