Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO responded on Wednesday, May27, to mounting criticism from President Donald Trump and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Twitter added fact-checking labels to the president’s tweets about mail-in ballots .
WITHIN NIGERIA recalls that the US president, Donald Trump had threatened to close down social media platforms, a day after Twitter posted a fact-checking notice on one of his tweets.
Trump’s threat came day after Twitter Inc. for the first time added a warning to some of his tweets that prompted readers to fact check the president’s tweet that claimed mail-in ballots could allow widespread voter fraud. It immediately led to a presidential eruption accusing the platform of “completely stifling FREE SPEECH”.
Donald Trump insinuated that social media firms suppressed conservative points of view, then said that his administration would “strongly regulate [the companies] or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen”.
Jack Dorsey has now reacted to Trump treats saying that he is “ultimately accountable” for Twitter’s actions regarding the fact-check links on the president’s tweets, and implored the public to “leave our employees out of this.”
Reacting to the criticism, Jack wrote;
“Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.
This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions.
Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We’re updating the link on @realDonaldTrump’s tweet to make this more clear.”