Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, talks to Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, who host a late night show at Showtime. ViacomCBS owns Showtime and CNET.
Screenshot of Queenie Wong / CNET
The video by Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, talked to comedians and TV presenters Desus Nice and The Kid Mero on Wednesday, addressing a variety of topics, from how the company deals with misinformation about coronaviruses on whether users will ever get a feature to edit their tweets.
The one-hour live chat took place on the same day that the social network announced it would remove tweets that could cause people to damage or destroy “critical infrastructures” such as cell phone towers. This includes tweets like “5G causes coronavirus – destroy the cell towers in your neighborhood!” Like other social networks, Twitter has also been criticized for not being able to combat misinformation about coronaviruses. It has also come under fire because it left tweets from President Donald Trump that could encourage people to have no social distance during a pandemic. (Disclosure: Desus & Mero will air on Showtime. Both Showtime and CNET are owned by ViacomCBS.)
Here are three insights from the interview:
Twitter users will soon not receive an edit button
For many years, Twitter users have been asking the company about a way to edit tweets to correct typing errors.
It still doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen soon. However, the idea is not entirely off the table.
“Anything is possible, especially an edit button,” said Dorsey.
Dorsey also pointed out various challenges associated with releasing an edit button. Someone could tweet that he loved something, and this message could be retweeted by his followers. If you edit the message, you can completely change the meaning of the tweet.
“You say ‘I hate XYZ’ and then you just retweeted something you didn’t originally retweet,” he said.
The company could also set up a 30-second window in which users can correct tweets before they are sent. The only problem is that users also want to send information quickly, especially when commenting on a live event like a basketball game.
There are possible solutions to these challenges, but Dorsey said that creating an edit button on the company’s priority list is of less importance.
Dorsey’s $ 1 billion pledge to fight coronavirus focuses on underserved communities
On April 7, Dorsey tweeted that he would donate $ 1 billion of his inventory to Square to combat the corona virus. The Twitter CEO also runs the payment company Square. The money from Square’s equity would go to a Dorsey-based limited company called Start Small, and there’s a public Google document that shows how the funding is spent.
Since then, Dorsey has partnered with musician Rhianna to set up a $ 4.2 million scholarship program to help victims of domestic violence during the pandemic. He also spoke to Navajo Nation, an Indian territory.
A major focus of the fund will be on Africa, he said. Dorsey planned to spend up to six months there, but started pedaling again after the outbreak of the corona virus.
Start Small has a reserve of $ 15 million that has already been used up. The company should have access to $ 200 million this week, he said.
“One of the great things about this model is that Square gains value in terms of its stock price and the fund has more access,” he said.
Twitter doesn’t want to be the “arbiter of truth”
Dorsey was asked if Twitter could potentially ban Trump from the platform for a month to spread misinformation.
His answer: “Labeling” will be useful here. The social network has previously announced that it will put a warning label on tweets from world leaders who violate its rules but are disregarded due to public interest. The company has not yet used this label for Trump’s tweets.
Twitter has taken action against coronavirus tweets from the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, which conflict with the guidelines “Relevant Sources of Global and Local Public Health Information”.
Users can also reply to or quote tweets and indicate that they contain misinformation. Politician tweets also appear on television or on websites, Dorsey said.
“The cat is already out of his pocket,” he said, adding that the company could provide more context or indicate disagreement on a topic.
The label can be used to combat other types of misinformation.
“It’s less about freedom of expression than about who should be the arbiter of the truth,” said Dorsey.
People and credible institutions can weigh up possible misinformation, but it’s not necessarily Twitter’s job to determine what is fake news and what isn’t, he said.