Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo secretly ordered Twitter employees to filter out abusive replies during President Obama’s 2015 Q&A on the social media platform, Buzzfeed News reported.
Costolo allegedly ordered employees to deploy an in-house algorithm to filter out harassment directed at the president, according to the anonymous sources who spoke with Buzzfeed. The algorithm was built using thousands of handpicked tweets that were deemed “harassing.” It is not clear what Twitter defined as harassment.
A small team was designated to work on the project while all other employees were kept in the dark. Some of the senior staffers in charge of filtering the tweets were upset that it violated Twitters principles on free speech.
Another source told Buzzfeed that a Caitlyn Jenner Q&A was similarly censored.
Twitter at the time touted itself as the “free speech wing of the free speech party,” but it has taken actions since that have degraded that label. From the permanent banning of conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to the site’s inconsistent enforcement of a harassment policy, there are growing questions about Twitter’s commitment to free speech.
The Buzzfeed report reinforces what some already believed about Twitter: that it is more interested in protecting the delicate sensibilities of celebrities on the platform than helping the average users who face real harassment every day.