Twitter chief executive officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey explained that placing fact-check labels on US President Donald Tump’s tweets does not make the company an “arbiter of truth”.
Dorsey responded in defense of Twitter following a slew of criticism the social media firm received from conservatives after it placed a fact-check label on tweets by Trump about mail-in ballots.
Fact-check label on tweets
The Twitter CEO wrote: "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."
The US president, who is also a prolific user of the microblogging platform, has threatened to take action against tech companies following Twitter’s fact-check label on his tweets.
The said tweets included false claims that the governor of California was sending out mail-in ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there." Trump wrote: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent."
They were labeled with a message urging users to "Get the facts about mail-in ballots," which was directly linked to a curated fact-checking page containing journalists and news article summaries debunking the claim.
In a "what you need to know" section, Twitter wrote that Trump "falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to 'a Rigged Election'. Fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud."
Trump’s response
In response to Twitter’s actions, Trump threatened to "strongly regulate" or even "close down" social media platforms. He claimed that Republicans felt the platforms "totally silence conservatives" and that he would not allow this to happen.
He earlier wrote that Twitter was "completely stifling free speech". Later on Wednesday, he said the social media company "has now shown everything we have been saying about them... is correct" and vowed "big action to follow".
The US president accused Twitter of trying to interfere in the upcoming presidential election on November 3, 2020, claiming that the social media firm was "completely stifling free speech, and I, as president, will not allow it to happen".
Trump warned social media companies to "clean up your act now" and that he would not let a "more sophisticated version" of what they had "attempted to do, and failed, in 2016" happen again.
Regarding the issue, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: "We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online."
"Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," Zuckerberg added.
Dorsey took responsibility for Twitter’s decisions and urged people to "leave our employees out of this."
This was after Trump's two elder sons and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway pointed to Twitter employee Yoel Roth’s tweets in 2016 and 2017 as evidence of Twitter's alleged bias against the president.
"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," Dorsey argued.
