Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, issued something of an apology for allowing Twitter to drift away from its original mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
The statement was a response to the ongoing release of documents by Elon Musk, with the aid of a number of journalists, dubbed “The Twitter Files.”
In his blog, Dorsey wrote, “There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified.
“I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:
- Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
- Only the original author may remove content they produce.
- Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.”
He than said that Twitter did not “meet any of these principles” and said,
This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020.
The New York Post wrote that the “activist” mentioned is probably Paul Singer, who’s “Elliott Management took a $1 billion stake and started moves to oust him as CEO.”
Dorsey continued with his mea culpa:
The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets).
The Twitter Files have exposed some of the inner workings of the social media giant, which has more than 238 million daily active users. In part one, journalist Matt Taibbi revealed decisions by high level Twitter executives to suppress an October New York Post story that could have had a significant impact on the 2020 election.
Politicians and government employees influenced Twitter to make that decision.
In The Twitter Files – Part Two, journalist Bari Weiss reported that the company blacklisted conservatives and scientists who opposed COVID-19 lockdowns. She wrote:
A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users.
More recently, parts three, four and five revealed how President Donald Trump was removed from Twitter in January, 2021, despite the fact that employees admitted he had not violated Twitter policies.
The exposé also documented meetings between Twitter’s former head of safety, Yoel Roth, and FBI and DHS officials as decisions were being made about whose accounts to ban and suppress.
Without saying it very directly, Dorsey seems to be tacitly admitting that corporations and government were censoring speech.
This is something that should concern Christians, for a number of reasons. First, we care about truth. If government agencies and corporations are shutting down true stories, especially right before an election, that should concern all of us.
Second, we should be care about free speech, which gives Christians freedom to say what we believe. We’ve seen an accelerating, concerted effort from corporations, government, educational institutions and the entertainment world to silence Christian views and to compel speech with which we disagree.
Christians can’t stay silent about this and must push back – or lose our precious liberty.
Despite the important and explosive nature of The Twitter Files, liberal mainstream media outlets have been silent about it. Journalist Tom Elliott, founder of Grabien News, posted a tweet demonstrating the dearth of coverage:
Please embed tweet: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1602308269078355969
“Weird” indeed, as the corporate press doesn’t seem to care about freedom of speech or pursuing scandals involving government suppression of speech on social media.
You can see that during the ten days following December 2, ABC News and CBS News did not mention The Twitter Files, while NBC News mentioned it once. MSNBC mentioned the story 17 times and CNN 13 times.
Fox News and Newsmax TV, on the other hand, spoke about the story 374 times and 291 times, respectively.
Dorsey writes that he believes the power to control information should be in the hands of the people. Writing about the company he once ran, he says:
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.
The billionaire says he will be funding “engineering teams working on social media and private communication protocols bitcoin, and a web-only mobile OS.”
He also said he wants Twitter “and every company,” to be more transparent, saying this builds trust.
Too bad Dorsey didn’t follow that path and succumbed to internal and external pressure when running Twitter. But it looks like Elon Musk is attempting to turn things around, by being more open and releasing these internal documents and files.
Related articles and resources:
Elon Musk Takes the Reins at Twitter, Fires Chief Executives as Free Speech Makes a Comeback
It’s Official: Elon Musk Buys Twitter in Potentially Massive Victory for Free Speech
‘The Twitter Files’ – Elon Musk Releases Details of New York Post Censorship
‘The Twitter Files Part Two’ – Documentation of ‘Twitter’s Secret Blacklists’
Twitter Locks Out ‘The Daily Citizen’ Over Factual Reporting on Biden’s Transgender Nominee
Photo from Shutterstock.
