Jack Dorsey has responded to this question multiple times in several places-- I heard him address it in the Making Sense podcast by Sam Harris some time in the past year. He seemed to show a firm grasp of the nuances involved.
Here is a quote from him: "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” [...] “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”
He apparently feels there will be wider discussion from all parts of the political spectrum if things are left as they are. Should Trump move to a platform where he has more control over the format, it might just make it easier for him to suppress or obfuscate dissent.
I don't know if Dorsey is making the right call here, but he has clearly thought about it a lot, and discussed those thoughts publicly.
Dorsey is right to want to encourage broader discussion across the political spectrum on topics. But the current fact-checking approach is flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise.
A better approach may be to offer a resource page that shows every news article on the topic, with guidelines on political leaning, how credible each article is etc so that readers can exercise their critical thinking to figure out what to believe. For example: https://story.thefactual.com/news/story/239362-Social-Media shows 285 related articles.
Disclosure: above page is from my startup, The Factual.
>But the current fact-checking approach is flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise.
This is a true statement.
>A better approach may be to offer a resource page that shows every news article on the topic, with guidelines on political leaning
...seems to just introduce another level of bias. Every "media bias" website touts "objective analysis" while in the FAQ they admit to relying on a panel that they assure you is 100% objective. How do you guarantee that these ratings are not "flawed as it requires human judgment, which is hobbled by people's biases and potential lack of topical expertise"? See: allsides.com[1] and Media Bias Fact Check [2].
Looking at your employee page, you seem to have exactly zero employees with any significant background in journalism. What "topical expertise" does Factual provide that a layperson doesn't have? How do you minimize human judgement?
This reads to me as "You shouldn't use Facebook because you're the product, not the customer, which leads to bad incentive alignment. Use Twitter instead."
Can you cite exactly how Twitter isn't ensuring that bias + topical expertise are being disregarded in their fact checking routines...? They generally have in-house people + partner companies doing it.
Your entire post just reads like an advertisement for your project, which a number have tried and hit the limits of effectiveness on.
The page you linked doesn't contain explanation at all, what is a very important part of fact checking (if it can be automated, it can be tricked). It should probably contain a mix of automatic links with multiple independent human fact checkings that explain why a side should be picked over the other.
> I don't know if Dorsey is making the right call here, but he has clearly thought about it a lot, and discussed those thoughts publicly.
Similarly, I'm conflicted. I understand Jack's argument, but I'm not sure he's making the right call here. It is highly unlikely Trump could build a platform or co-opt one that has the reach of Twitter. And arguably, the terms of service should apply equally to everyone on the platform. Trump has engaged in hate speech and targeted his followers against individuals in a way that probably destroyed their lives (death threats, etc.). IMHO, Twitter should enforce their TOS against all users in a fair and equal way, regardless of whether they are POTUS or a normal citizen.
> It is highly unlikely Trump could build a platform or co-opt one that has the reach of Twitter.
Thought experiment: if instead of posting on Twitter, he sent an e-mail to a few thousand journalists?
I never use or consume Twitter, but I see screen captures of things Twitter posts all the time.
Granted: one big thing this approach misses is the back and forth. I gather Trump re-tweets quite a bit of stuff, and responds to others. I guess that could be simulated via e-mail.
My point is that as far as his ability to be heard, I don't think Twitter is necessary.
How that wouldn't be replicated in a matter of weeks? He can just start posting on donaltjtrump.ru and people will check it. They can throw together a notification app.
Twitter is in a very winning situation. Before Trump took office and started tweeting a lot, the relevance of Twitter was often up for debate. Now they're a place where people get the latest updates from a world leader. That's great for Twitter.
He keeps it only because of his current title. I would not be the least bit surprised if he loses it the second another person is elected president. He will definitely lose it once another person is inaugurated.
Why do you say that Trump will definitely lose it once another person is inaugurated, but only maybe when another person is elected president? Honest question.
Edit: I know election and inauguration are separate, I was wondering about the significance of this to Twitter.
I'm not sure if you mean this seriously, or in an exasperated but joking manner.
If you are serious, it's because Trump has done more for the legitimacy and usage of Twitter than any engineer, businessperson, or celebrity other than Dorsey & cofounders.
To be clear: Twitter may take a tough official stance against Trump, but behind closed doors he is the MVP.
Twitter stock 2013-2020 [1] vs. S&P 500 [2] supports your claim. My take is its a combination of political divisiveness in the US alongside larger influences (i.e. Trump) inflating audiences / ad. revenue.
That made my curious about what Twitter accounts have the most followers. The top 10 are [1]:
1. Barack Obama, 118 million.
2. Justin Bieber, 111.
3. Katy Perry, 108.
4. Rihanna, 96.
5. Taylor Swift, 86.
6. Christiano Ronoldy, 84.
7. Lady Gaga, 81.
8. Donald Trump, 80.
9. Ellen DeGeneres, 80.
10. Ariana Grande, 74.
The next highest politican is Indian Prime Minister Modi, at #17 with 57 million. The Office of the Prime Minister of India is at #42, with 35 million. Obama, Trump, and Modi are the only politicians in the top 50.
The only individuals in the top 50 who are not those three or entertainers (counting athletes as entertainers) are Bill Gates at #22 with 50 million and Elon Musk at 47 with 34 million.
Obama has a huge advantage over Trump and Modi. When you make a new account, Twitter normally suggests following Obama. That gets him followers for zero effort. On the other hand, new accounts that immediately follow a bunch of people like Trump get hit with random annoying account restrictions that might cause a person to hesitate or even delete their account.
Followers are largely irrelevant, here. Trump's tweets are cited on a weekly basis by hundreds of publications globally. More people view trump tweets not-on-Twitter than on the platform.
Obama has 118M followers, whereas Trump's tweets have reach on the magnitude of billions of people. Had Obama been a Tweeter-In-Chief like Trump while he was president, his tweets would've had a similar reach.
Follow numbers matter little, if at all. In fact follower numbers are a rounding error in this context. Trump's tweet's reach is on the order of billions of people; hundreds of news organizations cite his tweets on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis, and orders of magnitude more bloggers do so as well.
It's absolutely true, but people may not like to acknowledge that.
> Trump's tweet's reach is on the order of billions of people
I think you vastly overestimate the number of extremely online politics people who pay close attention to Trump's tweets. People use Twitter to follow their friends and celebrities, not because of Trump. Only a minuscule fraction of the attention that Twitter receives is attributable to him.
