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Twitter boss Donald Trump and Jack Dorsey between ambivalence and hate

2020-05-29T20:46:51.461Z


Tense for several years, the relationship between the two men turned into direct confrontation this week, with the American presidential campaign in the background.


Between Donald Trump and Jack Dorsey, war is declared. It is indeed the decision Tuesday of the CEO of Twitter to have affixed under two messages of the American president the mention "take knowledge of the facts" which triggered the signing of the presidential decree Thursday evening. A decree, long contemplated, which enjoins its administration to change the rules and the legal framework which apply to social networks and to their protective status of hosts. In response, on Friday, the platform posted a third message from President Trump regarding the events in Minneapolis, this time with a warning that it violates "Twitter rules regarding the glorification of violence."

If Donald Trump could only neutralize Twitter, he would have done so, as he publicly announced Tuesday by threatening to shut down the platform. But his lawyers did not find the legal way to do it, hence a broader initiative that affects all networks.

Jack Dorsey and the American president have only met once - at least publicly - since the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, on April 23, 2019. Thirty minutes of exchanges, in the presence of two other executives of Twitter, during which they talked about the platform and social networks. An exchange from which Donald Trump emerged visibly delighted publicly, to read his tweet, calling for the future to continue an "open discussion":

Jack Dorsey's less cheerful answer:

The two men have a relationship that is both ambivalent and tense. Ambivalent because Donald Trump did a lot for the promotion and the notoriety of the microblogging site. Followed by some 80.4 million people worldwide (the platform has 330 million users), his Twitter account has served him since the beginning of his presidency as a powerful megaphone to relay his statements, his moods, his attacks, its critics, without filter. Thanks to him, almost everyone on the planet has, at least once in their life, heard of Twitter since 2016.

Acerbic and regular reviews

A platform that the man Donald Trump has loved since 2011, with the same impulsiveness and violence from the start, as Jack Dorsey himself recalled in an interview with Wired media in 2017: “ He used it (Twitter) as a central platform for his communication since 2011, 2012. He hasn't really changed his behavior. It has been fairly consistent; It's just the position from which he speaks that has changed. But his tweets today are consistent with his tweets from 2011-2012, ”he explained.

In November 2017, the president's account was deactivated for a few minutes, immediately casting doubt on the voluntary nature of the platform. It would later prove that it was the "last stand" of a Twitter employee on departure, who had benefited from a privilege of rights on the platform.

This episode, anecdotal, summarizes well the feeling of Donald Trump vis-à-vis Jack Dorsey and Twitter, which he has regularly and acerbically criticized for years. The president complains about his salary as well as that of the Republicans in general. He accuses the platform of closing accounts, over-moderating or arranging to reduce the visibility of comments when they come from his camp.

Red line

For his part, Jack Dorsey has never hidden his aversion to Donald Trump's words and his very different conception of what exchanges on his platform should be. But, until then, he hadn't brought anything directly against his most famous user when he applied a fact-checking policy on other tweets.

The American presidential campaign changed the game and raised the tension between the two men. In October 2019, Jack Dorsey announced that unlike Facebook, his platform would therefore refuse any advertising of a political nature. His decision to finally apply fact checking to two messages indicates an even clearer desire to define a red line on the conditions of the debate. Jack Dorsey defended himself from placing Twitter as an “arbiter of the truth” (an expression dear to Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook): “ Our intention is to make the link between conflicting statements and show the information in question so people can make up their own minds. Greater transparency on our side is crucial so that people can then clearly understand the reason behind our actions, "he wrote.

Twitter does nothing about all the lies and all the propaganda spilled by China or the Democratic Left Party. They target Republicans, Conservatives and the President of the United States. Section 230 should be withdrawn by Congress. In the meantime, it will be regulated! "The American president tweeted Friday. The time for the 'open discussion' advocated in 2017 is definitely over.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-05-29

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