Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey fired back in a series of tweets. “We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make. This does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ 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.”
This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” 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.
— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
Twitter subsequently labeled hundreds more tweets with fact-checking labels, the New York Times reported.
In the same interview with Fox News, Zuckerberg said he believes Facebook has a “stronger” record on defending free speech than other companies, but didn’t provide evidence of that claim. Facebook works with dozens of fact-checking organizations, but doesn’t allow posts from politicians to be fact checked — a policy that has been widely criticized.
Twitter didn’t place limits on Trump’s tweets about election fraud or make them less visible. Instead the company added a label, telling users to “get the facts” about mail-in ballots, and linked to publications that had fact-checked the claims. A Twitter spokesperson said the labels were added because the comments were “potentially misleading.”
Zuckerberg’s criticism comes as Trump signed an executive order that will attempt to put new restrictions on how social media platforms moderate content. It’s unclear how the order will be enforced, or how much impact it would ultimately have.
The Facebook CEO, who had a private dinner with the president last year, said he doesn’t believe it’s the “right reflex” to place limits on social media companies. “In general, I think a government choosing to censor a platform because they’re worried about censorship doesn’t exactly strike me as the right reflex there,” he said.
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