Jack Dorsey tweeted in reaction to White House accusations of political bias after a pair of the president's tweets were flagged for being misleading.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reaffirmed the company's commitment to fact check information related to elections despite a fierce reaction from the Trump administration over a pair of Donald Trump's tweets that were flagged as misleading on the platform.
After a storm of criticism from the president's allies and threats from Trump himself to regulate social media companies via executive order, Dorsey tweeted on Wednesday night that "there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this."
He added that Twitter will "continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make."
"This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," Dorsey wrote.
In a follow-up tweet, Dorsey said the company would clarify its fact check of Trump's tweets, suggesting that "the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We’re updating the link on @realDonaldTrump’s tweet to make this more clearer."
On Tuesday, Trump reacted furiously after Twitter added a fact-check warning to his tweets about mail-in ballots. Via Twitter, the president accused the social media company of "completely stifling FREE SPEECH," pledging not to allow it to happen. On Wednesday morning, again on his Twitter account, he followed that up by tweeting how "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen."
By Wednesday evening the president pledged to sign an executive order against social media companies although it was unclear what the order will do.
