Jack Dorsey Struggles to Justify Twitter’s Censorship in Semi-Apologetic Thread – Opinion

Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey posted an interesting Twitter thread on Friday attempting to explain the social media site’s censorship actions. Dorsey said that all misdeeds at Twitter were “ultimately my responsibility,” going on to explain that while some issues could be corrected immediately, others require taking on a longer process of “rethinking and reimplementing.”

Although I tried to take a break recently from Twitter, I can’t help but notice that the company always did its best with the available information. Each decision that we made was ultimately mine. When we made mistakes, or went beyond the limits of our abilities, we acknowledged it and began to make amends. There are some issues that can be corrected immediately. Others require the system to be rethought and re-implemented. I believe it is crucial that we receive all forms of criticism, and that we have the time and space to respond to it. This should all be made public. Doing this work means you’re in the arena. It doesn’t matter what is being said right now. The important thing is the way that it works, how fast it improves itself and how efficiently it acts. That part was my biggest failure. I’m confident that part, at least, is being addressed and will be fixed. Individuals and companies should not be responsible for this. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe any permanent ban (with the exception of illegal activity) is right or should be possible. This is why we need a protocol that’s resilient to the layers above.

Beth Baumann, a former Townhall journalist, immediately critiqued Dorsey’s ineptness during the New York Post disaster.

You “corrected” the decision to ban @nypost’s account and keep people from tweeting their story about Hunter’s laptop. However, it was too little and too late. The election was influenced by you. Twitter shouldn’t have been used as a gatekeeper for information that was factually correct.

He claimed that he took immediate action after learning of the situation, but others pointed out that the Post was blocked for almost two weeks despite anyone with good judgment knowing that it was true or worth reporting.

Dorsey’s protestations certainly ring hollow, given that in just the past few days conservative Twitter users have experienced an astonishing uptick in follows and visibility. Twitter tried to claim that the sudden shift was organic. But many users insist that this is proof that Twitter is trying to wipe the record before Musk takes office.

Dorsey could well think that his motives were good. We don’t know the man well enough to judge his sincerity. It is lying at worst, and ignorantness at its best. This has led to the country’s utter destruction over the past two years. It isn’t the algorithm that is the problem, it is the ideology of those who operate the algorithm. They made unilateral decisions on what constitutes the very vague concept of “misinformation” that were based on their own political biases.

Twitter was made the most of the information superhighway, becoming the arbiter rather than users deciding what information they want to share and see. The misguided, if not pathetic notion that some people are better at deciding what information should be digested by the general public was the basis of the system.

When you believe that your political opponents are Literally Hitler™, it’s easy to justify wielding what power you have to shut them up and prevent conversation around their concerns.

Let’s not forget that Dorsey wasn’t just banning the Post, but punishing many accounts that shared the investigation. The New York Post ban, out of all his decisions, was his most political. No amount of justified justification will make it disappear from his history. Would we be getting this mea culpa from Jack Dorsey if Musk hadn’t stepped forward to shake things up?

Hardly.

It is a mixture of arrogance and fear. If Musk’s bid ultimately falls through, it will still have been a successful endeavor. The doors have been flung open and we’re all finally seeing how the sausage gets made.

There are some issues that can be corrected immediately. Others require us to rethink and redesign the whole system. While it’s important for me to receive criticism in any form, I also believe that we should have enough time and space to deal with it. This should all be made public.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 29, 2022

*it’s also crazy and wrong that individuals or companies bear this responsibility. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe any permanent ban (with the exception of illegal activity) is right, or should be possible. This is why we need a protocol that’s resilient to the layers above.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 29, 2022

We reversed the action almost immediately after I learned that they had done it. The account should have been reinstated without the need for a deletion of the tweet.

— jack⚡️ (@jack) April 29, 2022

It was explicit. It is yours.

— Jason Killmeyer for PA-17 (@JasonKillmeyer) April 29, 2022

Your team and you have banned purple because of ideological reasons. Your team and you voted in favor of one political party in multiple elections. Discourse was suppressed in favour of established narratives that ignore truth. Was that what you tried to accomplish?

— JC Craze (@jc_Craze) April 29, 2022

It’s not where you think you were “wrong or went to far” thats not the problem, it’s the cases where you didn’t think you were wrong, where you suspended, throttled, and banned, opposing view points, and you still think you were in the right to have done so, that’s the problem

— Nate (@AlsoNotNate) April 29, 2022

The sitting president was temporarily suspended
Can’t go back from that one-

— KERRY RAHEB FOR U.S. SENATE – VT (@RAHEBFORSENATE) April 29, 2022