Tag Archives: Jack Dorsey

Will Twitter Become an Ocean of Suck? By Matt Taibbi

Or a bay of banal, an island of idiocy, a sea of superficial, or a gulf of gratuitous glib? SLL will never know because SLL eschews social media. From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:

The resignation of Jack Dorsey is the latest plot point in the story of the Internet’s transformation, from democratizing tool to instrument of elite control

 

Jack Dorsey, the extend-o-bearded CEO who co-founded Twitter and whose fame grew with that of his increasingly powerful platform during the Trump years, resigned today. His departure is the latest plot point in a long-developing Internet tragicomedy, which has seen what was supposed to be a historically democratizing technological tool transformed into a dystopian force for censorship and control. The departure of Dorsey, the rare CEO who not only has a conscience but appears to consult it more than once every few years, is bad news for those who already had complaints about the company, which during his tenure came to occupy a central role in what’s left of American intellectual culture.

Twitter avatar for @jackjack⚡️ @jack

not sure anyone has heard but, I resigned from Twitter

Image

Twitter under Dorsey suffered from working too well. Specifically, society responded to Donald Trump’s Tweet-driven 2016 presidential campaign as if it revealed a defect in the platform that needed fixing when actually Trump’s election was proof that Twitter was working much as intended. Our political establishment just wasn’t looking for that sort of functionality.

The original concept of Twitter was egalitarian, flattening, and iconoclastic: “To give everyone the power to create and share ideas, instantly, without barriers.” That mantra fit with then-CEO Dick Costolo’s 2010 claim that “We’re the free speech wing of the free speech party.”

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Jack Dorsey Resigns In Embarrassment After Realizing He Helped Elect Joe Biden

From The Babylon Bee:

https://babylonbee.com/news/jack-dorsey-resigns-in-embarrassment-after-realizing-he-helped-elect-joe-biden

Congress, in a Five-Hour Hearing, Demands Tech CEOs Censor the Internet Even More Aggressively, by Glenn Greenwald

Jack Dorsey raised himself up one rung in hell by displaying the indifference to the congressional inquisitors that they deserve. From Glenn Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:

The repressive objective of the Democratic-controlled Congress is to transfer the power to police and censor political discourse from these tech giants to themselves.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Mar. 25, 2021

Over the course of five-plus hours on Thursday, a House Committee along with two subcommittees badgered three tech CEOs, repeatedly demanding that they censor more political content from their platforms and vowing legislative retaliation if they fail to comply. The hearing — convened by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Chair Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and the two Chairs of its Subcommittees, Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) — was one of the most stunning displays of the growing authoritarian effort in Congress to commandeer the control which these companies wield over political discourse for their own political interests and purposes.

As I noted when I reported last month on the scheduling of this hearing, this was “the third time in less than five months that the U.S. Congress has summoned the CEOs of social media companies to appear before them with the explicit intent to pressure and coerce them to censor more content from their platforms.” The bulk of Thursday’s lengthy hearing consisted of one Democratic member after the next complaining that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have failed in their duties to censor political voices and ideological content that these elected officials regard as adversarial or harmful, accompanied by threats that legislative punishment (including possible revocation of Section 230 immunity) is imminent in order to force compliance (Section 230 is the provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields internet companies from liability for content posted by their users).

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An Open Letter Challenge To Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey On Censorship, by Jason Sullivan and Bill Binney

You have to wonder if Jack Dorsey will ever read this letter, but it has some worthwhile sentiments. From Jason Sullivan and Bill Binney at zerohedge.com:

Open Letter to Jack Dorsey…

The American People and Social Media

“We seek a free flow of information… we are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.”

– John F. Kennedy, February 1962

Dear Mr. Dorsey,

At the September 5, 2018, U.S. Congressional Hearing in which you gave testimony under oath, you stated, in part:

Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our rules impartially. We do not shadowban anyone based on political ideology. From a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the platform.”

What we now know, thanks to multiple media investigations, is that; not only is Twitter engaged in censorship, but that it also openly weights its decisions by subjective terminology like “highest potential for harm” meant to obscure its motive of silencing any opposition to the mainstream narrative of both political “sides.”

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“Get The Facts”: How Twitter Is Making The Case Against Itself and Free Speech, by Jonathan Turley

“Free speech” and “social media” are fast becoming oxymoronic. From  Jonathan Turley at jonathanturley.org:

Below is my column on the Twitter controversy and censorship of social media.  President Donald Trump has continued to tweet on cracking down on the riots as well as controversy over his tweets on Twitter.  Like former Vice President Joe Biden, he is now calling for the outright elimination of Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act.  While supported by many liberal members and commentators, Twitter continues to build a case against itself — and ultimately free speech on the Internet.

Here is the column:

Free speech, our defining right in the United States, seems to be dangling on social media. Twitter added warnings on tweets from President Trump, marking a major escalation of speech controls on the internet, something that has been demanded by Democrats. While the company clarified that Trump did not violate the rules, it still intervened between him and all his followers to add its own view of the truth on a political controversy.

The action against Trump on his mail voting tweets is the realization of the fear of free speech advocates. People sign up for updates from Trump, not Twitter, but the company decided to force his 80 million followers to view its own position on this issue. Imagine if a telephone company listened for errant political statements on calls to flag its business concerns.

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Billionaire Paul Singer Seeks To Kick Out Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, by Tyler Durden

If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. Maybe this is how the voices shut out of the big social media sites will get their voices reinstated. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Some will say it’s long overdue. We would agree.

According to Bloomberg, billionaire Paul Singer’s activist hedge fund Elliott Management has taken a sizable stake in Twitter and plans to push for changes at the social media company, including replacing Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey. As part of its activist campaign, Elliott has nominated four directors to Twitter’s board, and while there are only three seats becoming available at this year’s annual meeting Elliott wanted to ensure that it nominated enough directors to fill all three seats or any other vacancies that may arise.

Initially, Elliott reportedly approached Twitter about its concerns privately “and has had constructive discussions with it since then”, although the hostile turn of events suggests that discussions were not all that “constructive.”

Elliott’s push to revamp Twitter comes at a pivotal time – just as Twitter cracks down on alternative voices, silencing and suspending anyone who disagrees with the company’s ultraliberal, virtue signaling ethos without as much as a second thought. As an example of Twitter’s unprecedented anti-conservative bias we can point to the recent tweet of the company’s associate General Counsel Jeff Rich, who in direct breach of his own employer’s Terms of Service, recently urged his followers to “cull” Trump from the herd, in what appears to have been a clear appeal to assassinate a sitting US president.

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