Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. Dorsey’s platform banned President Donald Trump while Dorsey was on vacation, and the subsequent financial fallout resulting from said ban is at least hilarious and at most true “justice.” Free speech is not a play thing for Silicon Valley nerds to play with. I guess this is what happens when your create a tone-deaf echo chamber.
Dorsey posted a long Twitter thread on Wednesday, but we won’t bore you with all of his meaningless platitudes and blatant hypocrisy. The 44-year-old Big Tech oligarch wrote about the decision to ban the president, which Dorsey said he didn’t “celebrate or feel pride” in doing. Essentially, Dorsey's playing on both sides of the ball to try and appeal to everyone. Don't buy it.
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
I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all.
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
However, Dorsey did double-down and say that Trump’s ban “is a failure of ours to ultimately promote healthy conversation.” Basically, he wishes his company went censor-crazy sooner.
That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
Then Dorsey hypocritically tweets how he wants the internet to free and “not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity, even though that’s precisely what Twitter has been used for — to shut down the public promotion of free speech, ideas and thought. Plus, if Dorsey is that distraught over Twitter's "failure...to promote healthy conversation" then why are so many tweets and accounts that "incite violence" on a daily basis still up and around?
The reason I have so much passion for #Bitcoin is largely because of the model it demonstrates: a foundational internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any single individual or entity. This is what the internet wants to be, and over time, more of it will be.
— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
People like Dorsey always try to soften the blow of their own actions by saying that “things will get better” and “it just takes time,” all the while continuing and accelerating what they were doing in the first place.
It’s time to stop listening to these people and taking them at their word, because they’re hardly, if ever, honest.
Sorry, Jack. Your words won’t bring users, or your stock price, back. You can’t grow when you limit your audience.