In a widely shared social media thread, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday defended last week’s decision to ban President Trump from his company’s platform, saying it was something he does not “celebrate or feel proud of.” decided “based on threats to physical security and off Twitter.”
Twitter permanently banned Trump’s account on Saturday is due to the “risk of inciting violence” after the deadly siege of the US Capitol.
Dorsey said it was “the right decision” in her post Wednesday.
“We faced an extraordinary and unsustainable circumstance, which forced us to focus all our actions on citizen security,” he said. “The damage offline as a result of online speech is demonstrably real and what drives our policy and our enforcement above all.”
However, Dorsey said, banning accounts “has real and significant ramifications.”
“While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel that the ban is our ultimate failure, to promote a healthy conversation … Having to do these actions fragments the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption and I set a precedent that I feel is dangerous: the power that a person or corporation has over a part of the world public conversation. “
He also said that Twitter is only a small part of a larger conversation over the Internet.
Dorsey said that if people don’t agree with the rules of one platform and enforce those rules, “they can just go to another service.” But that capacity is limited when events happen as they did last week, when several seemingly uncoordinated social media sites censored Mr. Trump and others who allegedly incited violence in Washington, DC.
“This moment may demand this dynamic, but in the long run it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet,” Dorsey said. “A company that makes a business decision to moderate is different from a government that suppresses access, although it may feel the same.”
In her efforts to help combat it, Dorsey said she works on a platform that can serve as “a fundamental internet technology that is not controlled or influenced by any individual or entity.”
For now, however, he said global public conversation is the “best and most relevant” solution.
“Everything we learn right now will improve our effort and drive us to be who we are: a humanity working together.”
Trump on Wednesday addressed social media censorship in his first video message after the House accused him of a crime of inciting insurrection for “deliberately inciting violence against the U.S. government” on 6 January.
After condemning last week’s riots at the Capitol – without appropriating any of the incitement for which he has been accused – Trump spoke of “the unprecedented assault on freedom of expression that we have seen in recent years. days ”.
Shortly after the riots, Twitter permanently suspended Mr. Trump ‘s personal account and Facebook he suspended his account for the remainder of his presidency. On Tuesday, YouTube temporarily banned Mr. Trump from uploading new content.
Meanwhile, “free speech” platform Talk it was suspended from Apple and Google app stores, and eventually shut down by Amazon Web Services, for failing to moderate the content that incited the violence. Several publications showed Trump supporters calling on others to take part in a “march of millions of militias” on January 20 and for the “patriots” to take up arms in Washington.
Many people called for a second civil war because Trump lost the election.
“These are moments of tension and hardship. Efforts to censor, cancel, and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong and dangerous,” Trump said in the video posted on the White House Twitter account. “What is needed now is for us to listen to each other, not to be silent. We can all choose for our actions to rise above the rank and find common ground and a shared purpose.”