Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at least appears willing to dialogue about how his platform will or will not regulate speech leading up to the 2020 election. According to Motherboard, both President Trump and Jack Dorsey met at the White House on Tuesday to discuss “the health of the public conversation on Twitter.”
An internal company email from Twitter obtained by Motherboard revealed that Dorsey along with several other of the social media giant’s executives participated in a 30-minute “closed-door meeting” with the president on Tuesday, which the outlet confirmed with two independent sources. The meeting was allegedly initiated by the White House.
In a second email obtained by Motherboard, Jack Dorsey explained the reasoning behind his decision to meet with Trump, saying that dialogue will bridge some of the difficult gaps facing the nation.
“As you know, I believe that conversation, not silence, bridges gaps and drives towards solutions,” Dorsey wrote. “I have met with every world leader who has extended an invitation to me, and I believe the discussions have been productive, and the outcomes meaningful.”
As to the employees that would take issue with the CEO meeting President Trump, Dorsey said that meeting a head of state should not be passed up by a person in his position — an inarguably diplomatic stance. “Some of you will be very supportive of our meeting [with] the president, and some of you might feel we shouldn’t take this meeting at all,” said Dorsey. “In the end, I believe it’s important to meet heads of state in order to listen, share our principles and our ideas.”
President Trump publicly expressed hope that the meeting with Dorsey would lead to an “open dialogue.”
“Great meeting this afternoon at the @WhiteHouse with @Jack from @Twitter. Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general,” Trump said on Twitter. “Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!”
The president’s tweet marked a departure from a statement he made earlier in the day about how Twitter treats him unfairly. “The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump,” he said. “So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M….”
A Twitter spokeswoman later told Fox News in an email that the meeting between the CEO and President Trump was “constructive.”
“Jack had a constructive meeting with the President of the United States today at the president’s invitation,” said the spokeswoman. “They discussed Twitter’s commitment to protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis.”
Twitter has faced increased scrutiny in recent months for alleged bias against conservative speech. Last year, Vijaya Gadde, the company’s legal, policy, trust and safety lead, and Kayvon Beykpour, the product lead, told VICE that the company does not “shadow ban” people, but admitted that some posts would take “more work” to be able to see:
The best definition we found is this: deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster.
We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile). And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.
The comment came after a VICE report revealed that Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, Donald Trump Jr.’s spokesman, and several Republican Congressmen did not appear in Twitter’s auto-populated search box.
Twitter most recently banned people from “deadnaming” or misgendering transgender individuals on their platform.