Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Denies Allegations That Site Is Censoring Conservatives
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has denied allegations that the site is censoring conservative voices.
In an interview with CNN‘s Brian Stelter, Dorsey admitted that his company is “left-leaning” but maintained that does not mean it prejudices the voices of its users based on their political inclinations. Dorsey was speaking in light of the growing criticism by users who have claimed that the site is covertly silencing the accounts of users it does not agree with — a practice more commonly known as “shadow banning.”
Dorsey has drawn a lot of flak for taking a long time before pulling the account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who, over the last few days, has seen his audience shrink massively on social media because of a lawsuit from Sandy Hook victims’ families. Jones has repeatedly maintained that Sandy Hook was staged, an allegation which is now costing him dearly.
Twitter’s CEO told Stelter that his company pays more attention to the long-term behavior of a user on the platform instead of his/her political opinion.
“We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology, we look at behavior,” the 41-year-old billionaire said, according to Newsweek.
“We use that behavior as a signal to add to relevance. We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, we I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning, and I think it’s important to articulate our bias and to share it with people so that people understand us. But we need to remove all bias from how we act, and our policies and our enforcement.”
Twitter CEO @Jack Dorsey: We are not discriminating against any political viewpoint https://t.co/qOeCNUbv71
Watch the full interview Sunday at 11 a.m. ET on CNN's @ReliableSources with @BrianStelter pic.twitter.com/jyiTNZ7PDa
— CNN (@CNN) August 18, 2018
Even as Dorsey maintained that social media companies, including Twitter, were doing their best to allay fears that they favored a political viewpoint, president Donald Trump once again took to the platform to decry its role in promoting “fake news.”
“Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others,” Trump tweeted.
Trump had earlier raised the possibility of confronting Twitter over the practice of “shadow banning,” but back in July, the micro-blogging site slammed those allegations, saying it never “shadow bans” a user, and only ranks tweets based on search results.
Meanwhile, as the Inquisitr reported yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee are still exploring opportunities to make Dorsey testify over censorship of conservative viewpoints, but it is unclear if such a summon would ever materialize.
