Twitter’s Dorsey Says Bias Among Company’s Employees Is ‘More Left-Leaning’

Jack Dorsey speaks during The New York Times 2017 DealBook Conference at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, on Nov. 9, 2017. Michael Cohen/Getty Images for The New York Times

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in an interview that the majority of the company’s employees share a “left-leaning” editorial bias.

In response to accusations that the company smothers conservative voices, Dorsey told CNN in a televised interview on Aug. 18 that he “fully admit[s]” such a bias exists and that the social-media platform is trying to operate with impartiality regarding company policies.

“We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning,“ he said. ”I think it’s important to articulate our bias and to share it with people so that people understand us, but we need to remove all bias from how we act, and our policies, and our enforcement.”

In undercover videos released by Project Veritas in January, multiple current and former Twitter employees indicated that the company censors conservatives and “shadowbans” people who express conservative viewpoints. Shadowbanning is the practice by social-media platforms of reducing or blocking the visibility of a user’s content.

Dorsey insists that any biases at Twitter don’t affect the work the company carries out.

“But the real question behind the question is, are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? And we are not. Period,” he said.

On Aug. 18, President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter, criticizing social-media companies for “closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others.” Recently, both Twitter and Facebook reversed a decision to block a campaign video by California Republican candidate Elizabeth Heng, upon “further review.”

Heng’s video included graphic footage of the Cambodian genocide, which she claimed had personal relevance because her parents narrowly escaped death in Cambodia and emigrated to the United States.

Alex Jones, the host of InfoWars, was recently suspended from Twitter’s platform for violating the company’s rules on “hate speech.” The week-long suspension came after Google, Facebook, Apple, and Spotify all removed a large part of InfoWars’ media from their platforms.