This could be interesting. Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey will be testifying this week to at least two House committees on Twitter’s shadow banning. As if that weren’t bad enough, the Wall Street Journal has published a report that claims Dorsey personally decides who gets blacklisted.
If that is true, that means his previous testimony to Congress and his public comments are nothing but lies. I’m shocked. You could have knocked me over with a Sherman tank. GOP lawmakers are quickly becoming of the opinion that social media must be named as public utilities and be regulated closely.
Last month, after Twitter’s controversial decision to allow conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to remain on its platform, Mr. Dorsey told one person that he had overruled a decision by his staff to kick Mr. Jones off, according to a person familiar with the discussion. Twitter disputes that account and says Mr. Dorsey wasn’t involved in those discussions.
Twitter’s initial inaction on Mr. Jones, after several other major tech companies banned or limited his content, drew fierce backlash from the public and Twitter’s own employees, some of whom tweeted in protest.
A similar chain of events unfolded in November 2016, when the firm’s trust and safety team kicked alt-right provocateur Richard Spencer off the platform, saying he was operating too many accounts. Mr. Dorsey, who wasn’t involved in the initial discussions, told his team that Mr. Spencer should be allowed to keep one account and stay on the site, according to a person directly involved in the discussions.
Google’s CEO has refused to testify, which may be bad for Google since there is talk that they are in violation of anti-trust laws and there is talk of breaking it up into 6 or 7 smaller companies like was done with Bell Telephone. But still, That’s gotta be a full time by itself!