Tag Archive: Jack Dorsey

Donald Trump’s new social media platform can’t handle the Truth

When Trump was on Twitter

“If you can’t beat them, secede from them.” That seems to be the Republicans’ motto these days. On social media, for example, Republicans have attempted several times to establish their own conservative platform, essentially a bubble that would cancel truths and opposing views in favor of the monolithic GOP take. Do you remember Parler? How about GETTR, a name that sounds a lot like Donald Trump‘s and Jeffrey Epstein‘s former dating technique?

With that stellar track record to go by, now Trump, who was previously kicked off Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for instigating the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol, says he is launching another new right wing social media platform, to be called, ironically, “TRUTH Social.” However, in this case, the TRUTH is not all what it seems.

Twitter throws up its hands, bans political ads

Message from Twitter

Last week, when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, he stated that Facebook would not review political ads for truthfulness, even though it reviews non-political ads. This cynical and inconsistent position has drawn a lot of criticism. Yesterday, seemingly in response, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced (via a series of tweets, of course) that Twitter will no longer carry political ads at all. Twitter’s announcement garnered some praise, especially in comparison to Facebook’s indefensible position. However, in truth, the Twitter position is lazy and even cowardly. Twitter, and Facebook, should instead adopt standards and do the work of vetting political ads.