SAN FRANCISCO, Kalifornia (PNN) - August 15, 2018 - Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday defended the company’s decision this week to put Infowars’ Alex Jones in a seven day timeout after Jones urged his viewers to ready their “battle rifles” against the media.
Dorsey said he resisted banning Jones, the embattled radio host, despite calls to do so, some of which came from inside Twitter.
“We can’t build a service that is subjective just to the whims of what we personally believe,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey said he believes the suspension can be effective and is consistent with the company’s policies.
“I feel any suspension, whether it be a permanent or temporary one, makes someone think about their actions and their behaviors,” Dorsey said.
When asked if he believes Jones will change his behavior, Dorsey said he did not know.
“Whether it works within this case to change some of those behaviors and change some of those actions, I don't know,” Dorsey said. “But this is consistent with how we enforce.”
Jones was banned or restricted from using the services of al least 10 tech companies this month, including Facebook and YouTube. Twitter had been the most high-profile holdout, until it announced on Tuesday that Jones was suspended from posting for seven days.
Dorsey later clarified on Twitter that he was "speaking broadly about our range of enforcement actions" with regards to the company's use of timeouts.
"I don’t assume everyone will change their actions. Enforcement gets tougher with further reported violations," Dorsey tweeted.
Dorsey’s interview comes after months of scrutiny on both him and Twitter for what critics say has been a sluggish response to systemic problems on the platform, including harassment, bots and hate speech. In the interview, Dorsey offered insight into the company’s decision-making process, but also showed that it is still struggling to figure out how to manage the platform it created.
In response to a question about Jones, Dorsey said, “The most important thing for us is that we are consistent in applying our enforcement.”
But in a follow-up question on weighing the importance of Twitter’s rules versus its moral obligation, Dorsey said the company has “to put the safety of individuals first in every single thing that we do, and we need to enforce our rules and also evolve our rules around that.”
Dorsey said trying to strike a balance between consistency and moral obligation had led the company to consider a policy around dehumanizing speech - one that could potentially ensnare Jones, who was banned from Facebook for what the social network called dehumanizing speech directed at Muslims, immigrants and transgender people.
Dorsey also said that he personally felt that other companies had been inconsistent with how they dealt with Jones.
"I think some of the actions have been, in my own personal view, a little bit inconsistent," Dorsey said.
Jones, who has peddled a litany of conspiracy theories over the years including the idea that the Sandy Hook school shooting massacre was a hoax, will be free to continue tweeting and broadcasting from the Twitter-owned video-streaming service Periscope next week, where he often livestreams.
