Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: Platform Was 'Probably Way Too Aggressive' in Banning Conservatives

During a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stated that the social media platform was “probably way too aggressive” in banning conservatives.

On a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey returned to the show this time accompanied by Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead. Independent journalist Tim Pool also appeared on the show, where he grilled the Twitter executives about their platform, multiple times backing them into a corner and forcing them to answer questions on topics they had previously evaded.

During the course of the podcast, the topic of the recent “learn to code” phrase came up. Shortly after a number of left-wing journalists were laid off, Twitter users — many who were conservatives — tweeted at the journalists to “learn to code,” the same advice that many left-wing publications gave to coal miners and laborers who found themselves out of jobs.

Twitter was extremely fast to ban anyone that tweeted the phrase at a journalist, Dorsey claimed during the interview that when they investigated the tweets the company found that “thousands and thousands” of tweets were being sent to a small group of journalists and thus treated the phrase as “targeted harassment.” Gadde added that the tweets were deemed to be part of a “dogpiling” which was one of the reasons that the company banned those tweeting the phrase.

But Dorsey stated during the interview that the bans may not have been the best course of action, stating that they were likely a result of “our team having a lack of context into what’s happening as well.” Dorsey further added that Twitter “would fully admit we were probably way too aggressive when we first saw this, as well.”

Gadde stated a phrase that has been repeated by the company many times, that the social media site has “a lot more work to do” to explain its decisions, and to investigate any “mistakes” made when banning users.