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Twitter Says CEO Dorsey Informed in Advance of Decision to Tag Trump Tweet

31 points| koolba | 5 years ago |nytimes.com | reply

26 comments

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[+] klipt|5 years ago|reply
I'm no fan of Trump but can't he just argue the tweet means something more doing the lines of "where there's smoke there's fire" ie "looting might lead to shooting so we need to stop things before they spiral out of control"?

The fact that Twitter previously allowed hashtags like #KillAllMen to trend doesn't really indicate a consistent policy against "glorifying violence" to me...

[+] tantalor|5 years ago|reply
It doesn't matter what he argues what it meant, only whether a reasonable person would interpret it as a call to violence. That's what the "Report Tweet" button is for.
[+] thundergolfer|5 years ago|reply
Re: Twitter consistent policy

Twitter does have a consistent and long track record of allowing violent Twitter posts by the military personnel of nation states.

Distinguishing acceptable violent speech and unacceptable violent speech is to Twitter a complicated exercise in navigating power and ideology in 2020 America.

[+] HelloFellowDevs|5 years ago|reply
Hope The President doesn’t find out that Dorsey is also CEO @ Square.
[+] psychometry|5 years ago|reply
Twitter should have suspended Trump's account (and many others) a long time ago. That they haven't suggests they're more concerned with a loss of traffic than incitements of violence.
[+] nickthemagicman|5 years ago|reply
I like that they're correcting him instead of banning him. I love that they're getting under his skin.
[+] MaxBarraclough|5 years ago|reply
He was asked about this in a podcast. Episode 148 of Making Sense. The relevant discussion starts at 56:30 and runs for 15 minutes. Unfortunately the episode is not freely available.

Dorsey talks about the 'public interest' of retaining Trump's rule-breaking tweets, how people can add their opinions, how it's expected that our leaders be 'extremely expressive', how it's a 'direct line to the people', how we can 'have a conversation about it'.

I consider his response to be extremely weak sauce. All he's doing is giving excuses for his failure to consistently enforce Twitter's rules. It's difficult to avoid your conclusion that it's motivated by traffic.

[+] hadtodoit|5 years ago|reply
It's clear Jack doesn't want to kowtow or maybe his ego is bruised but I just don't understand what he expects to come of this. The President has stacked the courts in his favor. He will get his way and twitter will take a massive hit financially.

My best guess is that Jack plans to move the company headquarters out of the US which would explain why he chose to allow remote work indefinitely. But can he get it past shareholders? The President had also stated he doesn't want foreign companies on the NYSE and no other market offers similar liquidity.

[+] dx034|5 years ago|reply
Saying that companies can't go against the president because he stacked the courts sounds a lot like a totalitarian regime to me. I really hope the US is not there yet and that anyone, individual or company, can criticise the government without fearing retribution.

Now if getting involved is smart from a business perspective is another question. But but they will have thought about that and also considered the consequences of not acting.

[+] TheHypnotist|5 years ago|reply
You presume any action outside of a near meaningless executive order will get off the ground.

I'll make another bold prediction. This is Trump huffpuff and Twitter won't be going anywhere.

[+] _pmf_|5 years ago|reply
> My best guess is that Jack plans to move the company headquarters out of the US which would explain why he chose to allow remote work indefinitely.

So he can have HQ in a cheap country, but pay SV salaries to the now remote workers in SV? Does not make much sense to me.

[+] woah|5 years ago|reply
Ending section 230 would end every website that has user uploaded content. Nothing will come of this. The biggest risk to twitter is that Trump gets mad and deletes his account.