The "Twitter Files" continue to be the talk of the town. Each day, there seems to be a new installment giving a behind the scenes look at monumental decisions from the old Twitter regime. Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, shared his thoughts on the issues mentioned:
There's a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here's my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified. I'II start with the principles I've come to believe based on everything l've learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead:
— jack (@jack) December 13, 2022
Dorsey continued the thread by explaining some conclusions he reached after his experience as co-founder and CEO of the platform before Musk's arrival. He listed three main takeaways in the tweet below:
1. Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control.
2. Only the original author may remove content they produce.
3. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice.— jack (@jack) December 13, 2022
Dorsey acknowledges his "biggest mistake"
The former Twitter CEO wanted to elaborate further on his statements and, after sharing the thread, concluded by tweeting a link to an article justifying his decisions. The most remarkable part of the brief, however, was when he acknowledged that his "biggest mistake" was, precisely, to invest in designing tools that would automatically censor content they deemed inappropriate:
The biggest mistake I made 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. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society.
Musk and Dorsey, friends or rivals?
The friendship between Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey is no secret. After the release of the "Twitter Files," the former platform CEO was the target of public blame, and Musk came to his defense. As he tweeted last Thursday, Dorsey was not always to blame for "controversial decisions":
Controversial decisions were often made without getting Jack’s approval and he was unaware of systemic bias. The inmates were running the asylum.
Jack has a pure heart imo.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
However, on the same day that Musk defended Dorsey, the engaged in a bit of a confrontation, on Twitter no less. The reason had to do with prior management's failure to effectively remove child pornography from the app.
Musk claims that the previous regime neglected to take action against such accounts. The former executive's response was blunt: "This is false," to which Musk replied, "No, it is not." Musk argued by explaining that when Ella Irwin, the head of Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, joined the company, "almost no one was working on child safety." For Musk, this problem was made a "top priority immediately".
No, it is not.
When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety.
She raised this with Ned & Parag, but they rejected her staffing request.
I made it top priority immediately.@ellagirwin
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
