Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, wrote on the platform on Tuesday that he agreed with Elon Musk that Twitter’s ban of former President Trump should be rescinded.
Musk said earlier on Tuesday that “I would reverse the permanent ban” on Trump at the Financial Times‘s “Future of the Car” summit. Axios reporter Dan Primack then wrote on Twitter that Musk said Dorsey agrees with that position, which Dorsey confirmed in a reply to Primack.
“I do agree,” Dorsey wrote. “There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work.”
I do agree. There are exceptions (CSE, illegal behaviour, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don't work, which I wrote about here after the event (and called for a resilient social media protocol): https://t.co/fQ9KnrCQGX
— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 10, 2022
Dorsey was CEO at the time that Twitter decided to ban Trump in the wake of the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. However, Dorsey noted that he wrote in a Twitter thread in January 2021 of some reluctance to put the ban in place.
“It was a business decision, it shouldn’t have been,” Dorsey wrote on Tuesday. “and we should always revisit our decisions and evolve as necessary. I stated in that thread and still believe that permanent bans of individuals are directionally wrong.”
it was a business decision, it shouldn't have been. and we should always revisit our decisions and evolve as necessary. I stated in that thread and still believe that permanent bans of individuals are directionally wrong.
— jack⚡️ (@jack) May 10, 2022
Twitter permanently banned Trump on January 8, 2021, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said at the time. The ban came after Trump sent two tweets saying his voters “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form,” and that he would not be attending President Biden’s inauguration, which Twitter said violated its “Glorification of Violence” policy in the context of the Capitol riot.
Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement following the announcement of the deal.