Jack Dorsey of Twitter said that “more transparency on our part is essential …”
New Delhi:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today strengthened his position by highlighting “incorrect or disputed information about the world‘s elections”, one day after US President Donald Trump threatened to close social media out of actions from Twitter on his posts.
Dorsey called for “leaving our employees out of this” as the confrontation with Mr. Trump is likely to escalate.
“Factual check: there is someone ultimately responsible for our actions as a company, and it is me. Please leave our employees out of this. We will continue to report incorrect or disputed information about elections around the world. And we will admit and own all the mistakes we make, “tweeted Dorsey.
“It doesn’t make us an ‘arbiter of the truth’. Our intention is to link the points of contradictory statements and to show the information in dispute so that people can judge for themselves. More transparency on our part is essential so that people can clearly see why behind our actions, “said the CEO of Twitter.
Fact-checking: There is someone ultimately responsible for our actions as a business, and it’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We will continue to report incorrect or disputed information about elections around the world. And we will admit and have all the mistakes we make.
– jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
“In accordance with our civic integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), yesterday’s tweets can mislead people into believing them they don’t need to register to get one (only registered voters receive ballots). We update the link on
@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this clearer, “tweeted Mr. Dorsey.
Twitter had tagged two of Mr. Trump’s tweets in which he said that more postal votes would lead to what he called a “rigged election” in November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the elections, and under tweets Twitter posted a link that said, “Get the facts on the postal ballots”.
In the United States, five states already organize elections mainly by postal vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.
For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the President’s violation of the platform’s rules with daily, often hourly roadblocks, personal insults and inaccurate information sent to over 80 million followers. , reported the AFP news agency.
But Twitter’s slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr. Trump into a tirade – on Twitter – in which he claimed that the political right in the United States was censored.
“Republicans believe that social media platforms are completely silencing the voices of the Tories. We will tightly regulate or shut them down before we can allow this to happen,” said Trump.
He said an increase in mail-in ballots – considered in some states to be vital for avoiding crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic – will undermine the elections.
“It would be free for everyone on cheating, counterfeiting and theft of ballots,” wrote Trump, whose re-election campaign was knocked out by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned him a top 10 hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded the line, telling Fox News that his social network – still the largest in the world – had a different policy. “I firmly believe that Facebook should not be the arbiter of the truth of everything people say online,” Zuckerberg said in an excerpt from Fox’s online interview on Wednesday.
“I think that in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, should not be able to do this,” he said.
With AFP inputs
