Twitter last week removed the account of US President Trump, citing the risk of violence after the assault on the Capitol by his supporters.
Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey says banning US President Donald Trump from his social platform after last week’s violence in the US Chapter was a “right decision”, but said it set a dangerous precedent.
San Francisco-based Twitter last week removed the account of Trump, which had 88 million followers, citing the risk of further violence following the assault on the Capitol by supporters of the president.
“You have to take these actions to fragment the public conversation,” Dorsey said on Twitter. “I am divided. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption and learning. And it sets a precedent that I consider dangerous: the power that an individual or a corporation has over a part of the global public conversation. ”
The ban has drawn criticism from Republicans who say it has stifled the president’s right to free speech. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also warned through a spokeswoman that lawmakers, not private companies, should decide on potential limits on free speech.
In his Twitter thread, Dorsey said that while he was not proud of the ban, “Offline harm from online speech is demonstrably real and what determines our policy and enforcement above all else.”
I do not celebrate and I am not proud that we must ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter or how I got here. After a clear warning that we would take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical security, both on Twitter and on Twitter. Was it correct?
– jack (@jack) January 14, 2021
Even so, he added, “Although there are clear and obvious exceptions, I think the ban is a failure of ours to ultimately promote a healthy conversation.”
Twitter has introduced a number of measures in the past year, such as labels, warnings and distribution restrictions, to reduce the need for decisions to completely remove content from the service.
“Healthy” conversations
Dorsey said she believes these measures can promote more fruitful or “healthy” online conversations and lessen the effect of bad behavior.
The Twitter CEO added that the bans made by social media companies on Trump after last week’s violence were encouraged by the other’s actions, even if they were not coordinated. But in the long run, the previous set “will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet,” he said.
Trump supporters, who have repeatedly made unfounded claims challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November election, stormed the U.S. Chapter on Jan. 6, trying to stop the Biden Congressional Electoral College winning certification.
On Wednesday, Trump became the first president in US history to be indicted twice.