Jack Dorsey testified under oath Twitter does not censor, ‘shadow-ban’ conservatives
Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, previously testified under oath to Congress that his company does not censor conservatives.
Following the second installment of the “Twitter Files” that revealed the platform’s efforts to suppress prominent conservatives, a resurfaced September 2018 clip of Dorsey’s testimony to a congressional committee was asked point-blank whether Twitter “censors” its users.
“I want to read a few quotes about Twitter’s practices and I just want you to tell me if they’re true or not,” Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., said. “Social media is being rigged to censor conservatives. Is that true of Twitter?”
“No,” Dorsey responded.
“Are you censoring people?” Doyle asked next.
“No,” Dorsey answered.
“Twitter’s shadow-banning prominent Republicans… is that true?” Doyle followed.
“No,” Dorsey said.
Jack Dorsey denied what we knew was true, Twitter was rigged to censor conservatives. pic.twitter.com/IMDPooiAzG
— Terri Green (@TerriGreenUSA) December 9, 2022
During the same hearing, then-Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, grilled Dorsey over his past claim that Democratic politicians, too, were affected by shadow-banning. When asked if he could identify which Democrats were affected, Dorsey refused to say, claiming it was for “protecting their privacy.”
“Can you personally vouch that statement is a true statement that there are Democrat politicians who, when you did the auto-search, they didn’t show up?” Barton asked.
“Yes,” Dorsey said.
When pressed what percentage of accounts affected were Democrats versus Republicans, Dorsey dodged from giving specifics but told Barton that the results were “not impartial.”
“Do you discriminate more on philosophy, like anti-conservative versus pro-liberal?” Barton asked.
“No, our policies and our algorithms don’t take into consideration any affiliation, philosophy or viewpoint,” Dorsey responded.
In a separate exchange with Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., Dorsey insisted the algorithm that led to the shadow-banning of multiple Republican lawmakers “was not written with that intention.”
Dorsey’s testimony appears to directly contradict reporting from The Free Press editor Bari Weiss, who was tapped by current Twitter owner Elon Musk to rummage through the “Twitter Files.”
“A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users,” Weiss began her thread Thursday.
She pointed to Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a longstanding opponent of COVID groupthink during the pandemic who expressed opposition to lockdowns.
“Twitter secretly placed him on a ‘Trends Blacklist,’ which prevented his tweets from trending,” Weiss reported
