Jack Dorsey criticizes Musk’s posting of ‘Twitter files’, attacks executives: ‘If you want blame, show it to me’
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey acknowledged on Tuesday that he made mistakes while running the social media company, but he criticized the latest release of the “Twitter Files,” which new owner Elon Musk said shed light on politically motivated ad hoc decisions by former site managers.
In a post shared on Revue, a Twitter-owned newsletter platform, Dorsey said Twitter had no problem providing transparency about the former president’s actions during his tenure, including the decision to ban him. about the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol, but he would have preferred a different strategy for spreading the word.
Read: ‘Twitter files’ reveal internal company dispute over how to handle Hunter Biden’s laptop story
Musk gave reporters Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi access to information about Twitter’s decision-making processes on issues such as Trump’s Twitter ban and the Hunter Biden laptop reports, and both posted their thoughts on the information in Twitter threads.
In his post, Dorsey suggested that a better approach to transparency would be to release less redacted documents, similar to Wikileaks. He did not mention Musk by name in his post.
““I always want Twitter and every company to be uncomfortably transparent in everything they do, and I wish I had forced it years ago.” I believe absolute transparency builds trust. As for the files, I wish they were released Wikileaks style, with more eyes and comments. And with that, transparency obligations for current and future activities. I hope all this will happen. Nothing to hide…so much to learn. ‘“
Calling Twitter “both a social media company and a crime scene,” Musk criticized the decisions made by Twitter’s former management as politically motivated. He has also been involved in criticism of business leaders whose actions have been highlighted in Twitter files, including Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former global head of trust and security.
Musk tweeted over the weekend that Roth “appears to advocate for children’s ability to access adult internet services in his doctoral dissertation.” This article explored how service providers could create security policies for Grindr and similar platforms that could potentially allow for broader use cases involving users under 18.
Dorsey didn’t address the case specifically, but he raised the issue with attacks on those who once ran Twitter with him.
“Current attacks against my former colleagues can be dangerous and will not solve anything,” he wrote. “If you want to blame, point it at me and my actions, or lack thereof.”
Dorsey addressed other issues in the Review article, admitting that while executives try to be dishonest, “certainly mistakes are made.”
“I continue to believe there was no malice or hidden agendas and everyone acted on the best information we had at the time,” he said.
At the same time, he believes that Twitter “should have focused more on tools for the people using the service rather than tools for us,” which could have kept Twitter from being “in this situation where it needs a fresh reset.” I am in favor).
In his post, he said he thinks “any content he produces for the internet should be permanent until the original author chooses to remove it” and that he disagrees with third parties removing content. “Of course, there are significant problems with this position,” he added, “but starting from this principle will allow for better solutions than we have today.”
Dorsey took a broader view of human moderation, saying algorithms are key to delivering content fairly.
“But instead of a company or government building and controlling them on their own, people should be able to build and choose algorithms that best fit their criteria, or use none at all,” he writes. “A ‘follow’ action should always deliver every piece of content from the relevant account, and algorithms should be able to view everything else through the lens of relevance that the individual defines.”
He advocated “a free and open social media protocol that is not owned by any company or group of companies, and is resistant to corporate and government influence.”
Dorsey said his three main tenets, “Twitter when I ran it and Twitter today don’t match,” are that social media resists corporate and government control, that only authors can delete their own content, and that algorithms are the best. moderation. .
“It’s my fault because in 2020, when an activist entered our shares, I completely refused to defend them,” he said. “As a public company with no defense mechanisms, I no longer had any hope of achieving this (the lack of dual-level actions being a key factor). It was then that I planned to quit, knowing that I was no longer a good fit for the company.
