Jack Dorsey says Trump ban was the right decision for Twitter but reflects a “failure” to promote healthy conversation and sets a dangerous precedent
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explained in a tweetstorm that the company faced an ‘extraordinary and untenable circumstance’
Washington PostElizabeth Dwoskin
Context & Ripple Effects
Dorsey’s statement closes a long-running tension around Trump’s use of Twitter: in 2016 he described his feelings as complicated, and later reporting said he had personally intervened in individual content decisions, including decisions involving Alex Jones and Richard Spencer. The ban makes that discretion impossible to treat as an abstract policy question.
Related reporting says Dorsey’s lieutenants overcame his reluctance to remove Trump’s account after concluding it was being used to incite violence. His acknowledgement of a platform-level failure therefore places the decision inside a broader debate over how Twitter governs its most consequential accounts.
First-order effects
Twitter’s removal of Trump’s account formalizes a break with Dorsey’s earlier reluctance to take the most severe enforcement action against a prominent political user.
Dorsey publicly ties the decision to Twitter’s failure to foster healthy conversation, putting the company’s moderation systems—not just the banned account—at the center of the response.
Second-order effects
Twitter’s leaders and policy staff face greater pressure to show that exceptional enforcement decisions flow from durable rules rather than the personal judgment of the CEO or a small executive group.
If platforms continue to resolve politically consequential moderation cases through executive escalation, trust in content rules will depend increasingly on governance transparency rather than on any single decision’s outcome.
The episode points toward a structural conflict in platform moderation: companies must act against harmful use while avoiding a precedent in which private platforms are seen as the final arbiters of political speech.
The trend: Major social platforms are moving from ad hoc tolerance of influential accounts toward more consequential enforcement, exposing the governance limits of CEO-centered moderation.
I do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we'd take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?
That said, having to ban an account has real and significant ramifications. While there are clear and obvious exceptions, I feel a ban is a failure of ours ultimately to promote healthy conversation. And a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.
Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.
Ever reflective, @jack calls his decision to ban Trump a failure to create a service that can sustain healthy conversation. His tone strikes me as the opposite of Sheryl Sandberg's, who took the same opportunity to say FB did better than others https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Been thinking a lot recently about the incredible capture of Blockchain and Bitcoin by a certain community. Not in terms of who actually has Bitcoin in their digital wallets, although I think we'd find there's some correlation there too. https://twitter.com/...
The check and accountability on this power has always been the fact that a service like Twitter is one small part of the larger public conversation happening across the internet. If folks do not agree with our rules and enforcement, they can simply go to another internet service.
Thread. I don't agree with all of Jack says here, but it's great that he's showing his thought process on both twitter and the broader landscape for social conversation. https://twitter.com/...
That is pretty comical that the CEO of $TWTR likes #Bitcoin because it isn't controlled or influenced by any one individual or entity. “That is what the internet wants to be”. Is he really too dense to not see the irony in that statement? https://twitter.com/...
super petty but it's fun to watch white nationalists melt down over the realization that a guy who presents himself like this can actually cut off their mic https://twitter.com/...
I agree with #JackDorsey. The alt-right and #Trump has undermined our Free Press & confused America w/authoritarian propaganda. My ex-husband (Alex Jones) used my free, political speech to take my kids for years & coerced me to silence that might've stopped some of this. https://…
Jawohl, Herr @jack! Constitutional process, the 1st amendment is not permitted to those you deem unworthy or a “danger”. So - does this make Jack Dorsey the Adolf Hitler of big tech or just the Benito Mussolini of big tech? Thoughts? https://twitter.com/...
I think the women who have reported rape and death threats, and received responses that they don't violate your rules, might differ with your definition of “policy and enforcement” but go off. https://twitter.com/...
This is a good and thoughtful thread. For me, there's a basic problem at the heart of social media that's essentially unsolvable: you're essentially creating a society and all societies have people who are unfit for society. It's why we have prisons. https://twitter.com/...
Mea culpa from @jack: “ I feel a ban is a failure of ours to ultimately promote healthy conversation.” Trump is nasty but so are others who aren't banned. Selective banning violates the principle of free speech with reasonable caveats that @Twitter should uphold but doesn't👇 http…
Now that Facebook and Twitter have acted against Trump, will they devote the resources needed to monitor people who incite violence in languages other than English as in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Thanks to @satariano for including my opinions in this New York Times piece on social media and incitement from leaders. We need consistency and action, but also safeguards and *truly* democratic responses to concentrated platform power. https://www.nytimes.com/...
In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, @Facebook kept up posts that it had been warned contributed to violence. In India, activists urged it to combat posts by political figures targeting Muslims. And in Ethiopia, groups pleaded for Facebook to block hate speech. https://www.nytimes.com/...?
“The truth is, despite good intentions, these companies do not guarantee uniform application or enforcement of their rules [...] And oftentimes, when they attempt it, they lack the context and understanding needed.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Over here loling at the hypocritical outcry from some world leaders. “We'll pass bad, overbroad laws requiring you to remove any content we think is “dangerous,” but we elected leaders should have the right to use your platforms to say whatever we want without consequences.”🤨 htt…
Facebook and Twitter Face International Scrutiny after Trump Ban. Human rights groups and activists have spent years urging the companies to do more to remove content that encouraged violence. https://www.nytimes.com/...