Tech

Twitter's Jack Dorsey to Sean Hannity: 'We do not shadow ban'

Key Points
  • Dorsey and the social media platform came under fire last month from President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers for the supposed de-emphasizing of conservative accounts.
  • "We do not shadow ban according to political ideology or viewpoint or content period," Dorsey said. 
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc., speaks during an interview in New York, U.S., on Monday, May 1, 2017.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called into conservative commentator Sean Hannity's radio show Wednesday to address recent calls of censorship and so-called "shadow banning" of prominent Republicans.

"We do not shadow ban according to political ideology or viewpoint or content. Period," Dorsey said.

Dorsey and the social media platform came under fire last month from President Donald Trump and other Republican lawmakers for the supposed de-emphasizing of conservative accounts. Twitter does limit the visibility in search results for particular accounts it finds to be abusive, but has repeatedly denied doing so based on political beliefs.

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"There's a lot of nuance to this," Dorsey said. "This is definitely not easy but we're trying to approach this with a very simple goal which is how do we earn more trust."

Earlier this week Twitter stood as the only major social media network not to remove or ban InfoWars' Alex Jones. The controversial radio host had posts taken down or accounts terminated by Apple, Facebook and YouTube among others.

Twitter, though, said Jones had yet to violate the company's policies and so his accounts would remain live for now. Dorsey launched a series of tweets following the announcement to explain the decision and highlight other means for combating misinformation on the site.

"We rely on a bunch of signals," Dorsey told Hannity Wednesday. "We'll certainly miss things and we're certainly going to make mistakes along the way."

"We're getting better and better, step by step" he said.

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