In a leaked video that was recorded by a Twitter employee on the same day that Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s Twitter account (January 8), CEO Jack Dorsey spoke about wider, long-lasting censorship measures that will be coming to the platform.
In the video that was released by Project Veritas, Dorsey discussed Trump’s account and stated: “This is going to be much bigger than just one account, and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week. And the next few weeks and go on beyond the Inauguration.”
He also cited the platform’s mass censorship of QAnon as “one such example of a much broader approach that we should be looking at and going deeper on.”
Additionally, Dorsey spoke of the US being “extremely divided” and Twitter’s role being to “protect the integrity of that conversation and do what we can to make sure that no one is being harmed based off that.”
The release of this leaked video appears to contradict Dorsey’s statement on the suspension of Trump which he published yesterday. In this statement, he defended the ban as “the right decision for Twitter” but added that he does “not celebrate or feel pride” about the ban. He also warned of the dangerous precedent the ban has set and claimed that the ban represents “a time for us to reflect on our operations and the environment around us.”
But in this video, which was recorded six days before his public statement, Dorsey acknowledged that Twitter would be taking actions that are much bigger than just Trump’s account.
Between Friday and Monday, Twitter banned 70,000 accounts within just three days. As Dorsey said in the video, the measures Twitter is now taking are going to be long-lasting and extend beyond next week’s Inauguration.
