Co-founder Jack Dorsey criticized Twitter, both past and present, for not upholding certain principles in a Tuesday blog post that did not explicitly mention CEO Elon Musk at any point.
Dorsey said that Twitter “when I led it and the Twitter of today” failed to follow the concepts of social media being “resilient to corporate and government control” and moderation being “best implemented by algorithmic choice,” as well as the original author being the sole entity who “may remove content they produce.” He described those three things as principles he’s “come to believe” and took the blame for the platform not meeting them.
Jack Dorsey, creator, co-founder and chairman of Twitter and co-founder and CEO of Square, arrives at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a crypto-currency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2021.The co-founder served as Twitter CEO from 2006 to 2008 and again from 2015 to 2021 , when Parag Agrawal took over the role.Musk became CEO in late October following his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
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While at Twitter’s helm, Dorsey’s “biggest mistake” was “continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves,” he wrote Tuesday.That, according to the Twitter co-founder, “burdened the company with too much power” and “opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets).”
When Twitter banned former President Donald Trump from its platform in early January 2021, Dorsey’s belief that companies have excessive power became clear to him, he wrote in the blog post.
He said Twitter “did the right thing for the public company business at the time” by banning Trump but the “wrong thing for the internet and society.”
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Musk said in November that he would lift Trump’s ban .However, the former president does not appear to have tweeted anything since then.
“I continue to believe there was no ill intent or hidden agendas, and everyone acted according to the best information we had at the time,” Dorsey said, admitting mistakes were made.
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Dorsey went on to weigh in on the ” Twitter Files ,” the recent release of internal information from the platform through a handful of journalists that was facilitated by Musk .To date, there have been five parts that have provided insights into certain company actions surrounding the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story, blacklisting and shadowbanning, and Trump’s removal, Fox News Digital previously reported .
He expressed a desire for the “Twitter Files” information to have been published differently — “Wikileaks-style, with many more eyes and interpretations to consider” — and for Twitter to commit to transparency moving forward.
“There’s nothing to hide…only a lot to learn from,” Dorsey said.
“The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything.If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.”
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Dorsey also expressed strong support for open protocol for social media platforms , which he said was the “only way I know of to truly live up to” the three principles he mentioned.Open protocol is crucial to public discourse and to Twitter’s future, Dorsey added.
FOX Business reached out to Twitter for comment on Dorsey’s blog post..