Did Jack Dorsey lie to Congress?

Jack Dorsey denied what we knew was true, Twitter was rigged to censor conservatives. pic.twitter.com/IMDPooiAzG

— Terri Green (@TerriGreenUSA) December 9, 2022

Here's how the NY Post is reporting it:

Jack Dorsey called Elon Musk the "singular solution" to Twitter's problems and said "I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness."

"Dorsey’s exaltation of Musk evoked 'great man' thinking — a theory of history in which individual heroes direct world affairs through force of will and intellect. Antiquated among academic historians, 'great man' theory has enjoyed a renaissance in the technology industry.... What 'great man' thinking obscures is that technological breakthroughs invariably build on the work of others.... Of course Musk can’t build cars or rockets or a social network without help. But the importance of the teams he assembled at Tesla and SpaceX has been overlooked by many, including Dorsey, in assessing his takeover of Twitter. In short, Musk can’t transform Twitter, or even keep it moving forward, without a workforce of highly capable developers, designers, product and policy thinkers who truly believe in his plans for the company. And that is exactly what, by all accounts, he does not have at Twitter right now.... He could try to win over Twitter’s existing employees.... On Tuesday and Wednesday, he issued a series of tweets critical of both Twitter as a company and individual Twitter employees, including its top policy executive, Vijaya Gadde. Those tweets have helped to fuel an ugly, and at times violently racist, harassment campaign against her...."

From "Elon Musk and tech’s ‘great man’ fallacy/Jack Dorsey called him the 'singular solution’ to Twitter’s problems. But no leader can go it alone" by Will Oremus (WaPo).

There's no link on any part of "ugly, and at times violently racist, harassment campaign," and I do not know what it refers to. I went to Musk's Twitter feed, but am I supposed to sift through all manner of crazy stuff like this...

🤣💫

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

The notion that Twitter's the place to go to see what's happening — destroyed by Twitter.

I would love to read an essay on the ever-morphing definition of misinformation/disinformation. Seems that it has gone from being a description of Holocaust denial/anti-vax to a word to tag any content that seems to help the political right? https://t.co/jdwLu2Uxdv

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) October 15, 2020

You're seeing the immense, unchallengeable, unaccountable power of Silicon Valley giants over the flow of information. Imagine if Google joins in.

What's so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor: https://t.co/cFBfV97Ylt

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020

Congrats to twitter on its Streisand Effect award!!! 👏 👏 👏 pic.twitter.com/xQXqIDqwFT

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 15, 2020

Want to get back at @Twitter and @Facebook for censoring this story? Post this screenshot of the story and encourage people to see it for themselves at https://t.co/JK8929vegs. pic.twitter.com/oKgDWA2hmA

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 15, 2020

UPDATED: "Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was ‘unacceptable’" (NY Post).

"Twitter’s CEO, last of the Steve Jobs-like tech-founder demigods, was on the verge of being pushed out by private-equity investors. But his will, and wiles—and COVID-19—gave him new purpose. For now."

From a new Vanity Fair piece about Jack Dorsey (by Nick Bilton):

[E]ach day Dorsey wakes up... checks to see what the sleep-tracking ring on his finger says, then lowers himself into an ice bath before meditating in a warm tent sauna. This is followed by a seven-minute workout and then drinking his breakfast, which he calls “salt juice,” a concoction of water, salt, and lemon, which is the only thing he will “eat” until the evening, when he enjoys his single real meal of the day. His day wraps up in a slightly more extreme version of the way it began, with a ritual of 15 minutes in his barrel sauna, followed by three minutes in his ice bath, which he does back and forth three times for an hour. He then meditates again.... He enjoys working from home at least two days a week, often in his kitchen, or at his desk under the glow of a near-infrared light. When he does go into the office, he always walks the five miles there...

In Silicon Valley, tech founders embody all of the industry’s highest values—much like Greek gods. Someone like Dorsey, who goes on silent meditation retreats, dresses in couture costumes, runs two companies at the same time, and dates supermodels, is the epitome of “making it.” For a long time, Wall Street really couldn’t argue with the “cult of the founder” philosophy, as it’s called, as tech companies grew exponentially... Yet in recent years, as one start-up after another has fallen under the weight of its own bullshit, the cult of the founder has given way to a much more realistic reality....

As for the 45 total minutes Dorsey allegedly spends in his 220-degree sauna at night (which he breaks up into three separate stints), two World Sauna Championship competitors (yes, that’s a thing) collapsed after spending six minutes in a sauna only 10 degrees warmer than Dorsey’s (which is already hotter than boiling water). After being dragged out, the competitors were treated for severe burns, and one of the men died....

Lots more in the article. I didn't excerpt the details about various efforts to oust Dorsey. I'm stressing the weird stuff — the hot and the salty.

"We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons..."

"A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money. While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions. Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale. These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility. For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: 'We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well...they can say whatever they want!' We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we're stopping these too. We’re well aware we‘re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow. In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough.... This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address."

Tweets Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter.

"Twitter founder and CEO and billionaire Jack Dorsey... says he eats only one meal a day in the week and doesn't let any foodstuff pass his lips at the weekend."

"He also starts every day with an ice bath. 'Nothing has given me more mental confidence than being able to go straight from room temperature into the cold,' he says. And, rain or shine, he walks the five miles from his home to his office.... Dorsey's wellness-hacking habits are extrapolated from the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy of Stoicism.... [Dorsey has] created a platform that has allowed populists, alt-right types, and Russian bots to spread their messages to vast new audiences.... Twitter undeniably helped make Donald Trump president and gave Britain's Brexiteers a stage.... Dorsey has experienced how easy it is to create global pandemonium with a laptop and a smidgen of chutzpah. So for the Twitter CEO and his kind, trying to control biology with low-grade torture, plus a disinterest in traditional rich-people trappings, may be a kind of self-imposed penance for having built platforms and technology that have unleashed some pretty bad things on the world...."

From "Why are Silicon Valley billionaires starving themselves?" by Susan Margolis in The Week.

I don't believe there's any true penance here other than a desire for good PR (in that it makes him look serious, hard-working, and lofty — almost saintly). But I don't believe he's doing these things because he thinks he's done wrong — only that he wants to defend his company's reputation and freedom from regulation. I would guess that he's genuinely motivated by the desire for good health and long life and fascinated by extreme and challenging ideas about how to get that. Some people are drawn to stringent routines, and there's a sort of magical thinking about rituals.

And I don't think the philosophy of the Stoics had to do with penance. It's not about the sense that you've done something wrong and need to make up for it.