Upon the release of Twitter’s second quarter earnings report, the site — perhaps unwisely — gave users the chance to ask questions using the hashtag #TWTR.
Tweet us your questions during our Q2’16 earnings call Tues. 2pm PT @twitterIR using #TWTR.
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) July 25, 2016
The earnings report was dismal (slowest revenue growth since 2013) and the questions lobbed Twitter’s way were tough. Most had to do with free speech, Milo Yiannopoulos’ permanent ban, a perceived anti-conservative bias, and a double standard when dealing with Black Lives Matter supporters breaking the site’s ToS.
Why does it take anonymous to remove terrorists from your platform while you're banning gay conservatives? #TWTR
— Steve The Dragon (@Draconis) July 26, 2016
Why were the people threatening to rape me and kill me not banned? @TwitterIR #TWTR
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) July 26, 2016
Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, at least responded to one of these pressing questions. He essentially gave lip service to free speech, while pivoting back to the safety of the users:
Krista Bessinger (Senior Director, Investor Relations):
Great. And we’ll take our next question from Twitter. A number of people have asked about recent developments regarding safety, and whether our approach to freedom of expression on the platform has changed. Can you please comment?
Jack Dorsey:
This is Jack. This is really, really important to me and to everyone at the company. So, I want to address both freedom of expression and safety together here, since the two intertwine.
We are not and never will be a platform that shows people only part of what’s happening or part of what’s being said. We are the place for news and social commentary. And at its best, the nature of our platform empowers people to reach across divides, and to build connections, to share ideas and to challenge accepted norms.
As part of that, we hope – and we also recognize it’s a high hope – to elevate civil discourse. And I emphasize civil discourse there. Abuse is not part of civil discourse. It shuts down conversation. It prevents us from understanding each other. Freedom of expression means little if we allow voices to be silenced because of fear of harassment if they speak up. No one deserves to be the target of abuse online, and it has no place on Twitter.
We haven’t been good enough at ensuring that’s the case, and we must do better. That means building new technology solutions, making sure our policies and enforcement are consistent, and educating people about both. We’ve made improvements in the first half of the year, and we’re going to make more. We named safety as one of our top five priorities for this year, and recent events have only confirmed that this is truly one of the most important things for us to improve, and has motivated us to improve even faster.
The most unlikely part of this is Dorsey’s promise of “consistent” enforcement of policies. As it stands, Twitter has no problem silencing controversial conservative voices like Robert Stacy McCain, Chuck Johnson, and Milo, but it will do nothing about, say, Black Lives Matter supporters celebrating the deaths of cops. Conservative writer Kassy Dillon routinely receives death threats on Twitter, but she was temporarily suspended while her attackers accounts remained.
And “abuse,” it seems, only comes from one side of the political aisle — at least in Twitter’s view.
Twitter has a long way to go before anyone believes the site is even close to consistent about enforcement. This was Jack’s chance to offer an olive branch to conservatives and he completely blew it.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.
