Dorsey defends decision to fact-check Trump tweet: ‘More transparency from us is critical’

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his platform’s decision to fact-check and place warnings on two of President Trump’s tweets this week, further emphasizing the difference between Twitter and Facebook’s policies on misinformation. 

“Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me,” Dorsey tweeted. “Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.”

He also said that the decision to place the warnings doesn’t make the platform an “arbiter of truth,” directly quoting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who used the same phrasing earlier Wednesday while defending his decision not to label misinformation shared by politicians on his social media platform. 

“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 said.

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.

— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020

Dorsey added that Trump’s tweets were labeled because they “may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot.” He said the platform will be updating the link on the president’s tweet “to make this more clear.” 

Twitter placed warnings on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday for the first time. The warnings were placed on posts the president made making unsubstantiated claims that California’s mail-in voting was full of fraud. 

Asked by Fox News’s Dana Perino if he thought Twitter “made the wrong decision,” Zuckerberg said his platform has “a different policy than Twitter on this.” 

“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online,” Zuckerberg said in the interview on Fox’s “The Daily Briefing.” “I think in general private companies probably shouldn’t be — especially these platform companies — shouldn’t be in the position of doing that.”