Is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey a fan of President-elect Donald Trump’s tweets? The question was relayed to the platform’s chief at Recode’s Code Commerce event on Tuesday. Dorsey’s reply was characteristically diplomatic, but nonetheless revealing.
It’s “complicated” responded Dorsey. Trump certainly adores the platform, which he uses at all hours of the day to express his thoughts on everything from foreign policy to pop culture. At the very least, it seems Dorsey is aware of all the positive publicity Trump’s tweets are generating for the platform. After all, if Trump tweets it, you can bet it will be news.
“I feel very proud of the role of the service and what it stands for and everything that we’ve done, and that continues to accelerate every single day,” remarked the Twitter co-founder and current head honcho. “Especially as it’s had such a spotlight on it through his usage and the election.”
The “complicated part,” according to Dorsey, “is just what does this mean to have a direct line to how he’s thinking in real time and to see that.” He continued: “Having the president-elect on our service, using it as a direct line of communication, allows everyone to see what’s on his mind in the moment … I think it’s fascinating, I haven’t seen that before. So we’re definitely entering a new world where everything is on the surface and we can all see it in real time and we can all have conversations about it.”
Just this week, Trump explained his Twitter activity as a reaction to the mainstream media’s inaccurate depiction of him. He wrote: “If the press would cover me accurately [and] honorably, I would have far less reason to “tweet.” Sadly, I don’t know if that will ever happen!”
With Twitter taking a bold stance against hate speech of late — a move that has seen it ban dozens of accounts — the platform recently made it clear that absolutely no one (not even Trump) could bypass its policies. In a statement, the company reportedly said “it would consider banning key government officials, even the president, if its rules against hate speech or other language were violated.”
Related Posts
WhatsApp has begun testing a long-overdue group chat feature
The Meta-owned messaging platform is testing a new feature called "group chat history sharing" (via a WABetaInfo report). As the name suggests, the feature lets a WhatsApp user (likely the admin) share the chat history (up to 100 messages sent within 14 days) with someone while adding them to a group.
You can now choose the kind of content you see on Instagram Reels
The announcement came from Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, giving people a more direct way to shape the kind of videos they actually want to see. At its core, Your Algorithm lets users actively tune their Reels experience.
New UK under-5 screen time guidance targets passive time, what it changes for you
The push is rooted in government-commissioned research that links the highest screen use in two-year-olds, around five hours a day, with weaker vocabulary than peers closer to 44 minutes a day. Screens are already close to universal at age two, so the guidance is being framed as help you can actually use, not a ban.