Twitter Files: Attacks On My Colleagues Dangerous, Says Jack Dorsey

Sharing his thoughts on Twitter Files, ex-Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has said attacks on his former colleagues are dangerous.

Twitter Files is a series of leaks, in collaboration with Elon Musk that has triggered a debate about partisan content moderation by social media platforms.

Former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has for the forst time shared his thoughts on 'The Twitter Files', a week after Elon Musk started to release documents, emails and Slack logs around matters such as how the microblogging site handled news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, suspension and removal of Donald Trump's account following the January 6 Capitol riots, content moderation, and “blacklists” among other things. Dorsey said attacks on his former colleagues are dangerous, and would solve nothing.

“The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything. If you want to blame, direct it at me and my actions, or lack thereof,” Dorsey wrote in a detailed blog post. 

Sharing further thoughts, Dorsey added: "I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead: Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control. Only the original author may remove content they produce. Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice."

The former Twitter CEO mentioned that the microblogging platform, when he led it, and the Twitter of today does not meet any of "these principles".

"This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company," Dorsey noted.

What Are Twitter Files?

For those unaware, Twitter Files is a series of leaks, in collaboration with Elon Musk that has triggered a debate about partisan content moderation by social media platforms. These revelations have resulted in former Twitter employees being targeted, which includes names like Yoel Roth, twitter's former head of trust and safety. 

Musk recently cited the thread from independent journalist Bari Weiss, who published the latest installment of the "Twitter Files"  offering a glimpse into the deliberations at Twitter about permanently banning Donald Trump in the aftermath of the January 6 violence.

The long post also highlights the mention of the "biggest mistake" that Dorsey made, which was continuing to invest in building tools to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves.

"This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society," the former Twitter CEO said.