OAKLAND, Calif. — Jack Dorsey was up late Thursday at his home in San Francisco talking online with his executives when their conversation was interrupted: President Trump had just posted another inflammatory message on Twitter.
Tensions between Twitter, where Mr. Dorsey is chief executive, and Mr. Trump had been running high for days over the president’s aggressive tweets and the company’s decision to begin labeling some of them. In his latest message, Mr. Trump weighed in on the clashes between the police and protesters in Minneapolis, saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
A group of more than 10 Twitter officials, including lawyers and policymakers, quickly gathered virtually to review Mr. Trump’s post and debate over the messaging system Slack and Google Docs whether it pushed people toward violence.
They soon came to a conclusion. And after midnight, Mr. Dorsey gave his go-ahead: Twitter would hide Mr. Trump’s tweet behind a warning label that said the message violated its policy against glorifying violence. It was the first time Twitter applied that specific warning to any public figure’s tweets.
The action has prompted a broad fight over whether and how social media companies should be held responsible for what appears on their sites, and was the culmination of months of debate inside Twitter. For more than a year, the company had been building an infrastructure to limit the impact of objectionable messages from world leaders, creating rules on what would and would not be allowed and designing a plan for when Mr. Trump inevitably broke them.
But the path to that point was not smooth. Inside Twitter, dealing with Mr. Trump’s tweets — which are the equivalent of a presidential megaphone — was a fitful and uneven process. Some executives repeatedly urged Mr. Dorsey to take action on the inflammatory posts while others insisted he hold back, staying hands-off as the company had done for years.
Outside Twitter, the president’s critics urged the company to shut him down as he pushed the limits with insults and untruths, noting ordinary users were sometimes suspended for lesser transgressions. But Twitter argued that posts by Mr. Trump and other world leaders deserved special leeway because of their news value.
The efforts were complicated by Mr. Dorsey, 43, who was sometimes absent on travels and meditative retreats before the coronavirus pandemic. He often delegated policy decisions, watching the debate from the sidelines so he would not dominate with his own views. And he frequently did not weigh in until the last minute.
Now Twitter is at war with Mr. Trump over its treatment of his posts, which has implications for the future of speech on social media. In the past week, the company for the first time added fact-checking and other warning labels to three of Mr. Trump’s messages, refuting their accuracy or marking them as inappropriate.
In response, an irate Mr. Trump issued an executive order designed to limit legal protections that tech companies enjoy and posted more angry messages.
Twitter’s position is precarious. The company is grappling with charges of bias from the right over its labeling of Mr. Trump’s tweets; one of its executives has faced a sustained campaign of online harassment. Yet Twitter’s critics on the left said that by leaving Mr. Trump’s tweets up and not banning him from the site, it was enabling the president.
“It really is about whether or not Twitter blinks,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell University. “You really have to stick to your guns and ensure you do it right.”
Twitter is girding for a protracted battle with Mr. Trump. Some employees have locked down their social media accounts and deleted their professional affiliation to avoid being harassed. Executives, holed up at home, are meeting virtually to discuss next steps while also handling a surge
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By: Kate Conger
Title: Twitter Had Been Drawing a Line for Months When Trump Crossed It
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/technology/twitter-trump-dorsey.html
Published Date: Sat, 30 May 2020 09:00:15 +0000
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