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After the backlash from conservatives, the Twitter boss says it was wrong to block links to an article citing unverified emails from Biden’s son.
Twitter was wrong to block web links to an unverified political story, Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said on Friday, when the company responded to criticism for its handling of the story that had prompted cries of censorship from the right wing.
“Direct URL blocking was incorrect, and we updated our policy and app to fix it,” he tweeted. “Our goal is to try to add context, and now we have the ability to do that.”
Dorsey weighed in after an executive at the social media company announced changes late Thursday to its policy on pirated content following an avalanche of criticism.
Twitter will no longer remove pirated material unless it is shared directly by hackers or those who work with them, the company’s head of legal, policy, trust and security affairs, Vijaya Gadde, said in a Twitter thread.
And instead of blocking links from being shared, tweets will be tagged to provide context, Gadde said.
“We want to address concerns that there could be many unintended consequences for journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation,” he said.
Twitter and Facebook had moved quickly this week to limit the spread of the story published by the conservative New York Post, which cited unverified emails from the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden that were reportedly discovered by the allies of President Donald Trump. The story has not been confirmed by other publications.
Twitter initially responded by banning users from sharing links to the article in tweets and direct messages because it violated company policy banning pirated content. But it didn’t alert users to why they couldn’t share the link until hours later.
Dorsey had first tweeted that it was “unacceptable” that the company had not provided more context around its action. Just over 24 hours later, Gadde announced that the company was making changes after receiving “significant feedback (from critics to supporters)” about how it enforced the policy.
The company said the link to the New York Post story will remain blocked under a policy that prohibits sharing of personal information. However, users shared the story widely on Friday and it was unclear why they were able to do so.
Facebook said it was “slowing down” the distribution of the story on its platform while waiting for third-party fact-checkers to verify it, something it does regularly with material that is not completely prohibited on its service, although it runs the risk of spreading lies or cause harm in other ways.
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