Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Wednesday stood behind his company’s decision to temporarily ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the platform, rather than permanently ban him and his program as other tech platforms have done, after Jones on Tuesday called for supporters to ready their “battle rifles” against members of the media.
“Any suspension, whether it be a permanent or a temporary one, makes someone think about their actions and their behaviors,” Dorsey told NBC News’ Lester Holt, after calling the temporary ban a “time out.”
Jones was banned for a week from the platform after posting a Periscope video in which he urged viewers to ready their “battle rifles.”
“People need to have their battle rifles and everything ready at their bedsides, and you’ve got to be ready, because the media is so disciplined in their deception,” he said.
“Whether it works within this case to change some of those behaviors and change some of those actions, I don’t know,” Dorsey added later. “But this is consistent with how we enforce.”
Fence-Sitting Chicken, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, announced today that it has revamped its user agreement after intensive consultation with an experienced preschool teacher.
I’m sure that Mr. Jones, being the rational and benevolent person that he is, will take this time to re-think his world view and business plan and will emerge from this suspension calling for world peace and love between all peoples of the world.
Or some unhinged screed – you know, whichever!
Dorsey clearly thinks it’s better to retain the ad revenue that Jones drives rather than enforce Twitter’s terms of service.
The rules apply to everyone equally, unless there’s money at stake.
It’s more important to let advertisers reach Jones’ 890.7k followers than prevent a hate monger from inciting violence nationally. Echoes of Moonves…
Alas, the CEO of Twitter is a twit.
Here’s an experiment:
Hypothesis: even if you have 1000 followers, you get banned. Despite the content of your account being identical to Jones’