The Conversation That Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Should Have Had With Donald Trump
President Donald Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss a matter of pressing national concern. Oh wait, no: According to The Washington Post, a “significant portion” of the sit-down focused on Trump’s apparent concerns that he is losing followers in an alleged Twitter conspiracy targeting conservatives. After earlier in the day accusing Twitter—on Twitter—of being “very discriminatory” and, as he put it, “constantly taking people off list,” Trump reportedly floated the theory to Dorsey (above and bearded, at right), who then had to delicately explain that Trump likely lost followers after the platform deleted spam accounts and bots.
Twitter later said in a statement that the meeting addressed “protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis.” On Twitter, Dorsey thanked Trump and vowed that “Twitter is here to serve the entire public conversation, and we intend to make it healthier and more civil.” But if that is really true, there is a much more in-depth and decidedly even more delicate conversation that Dorsey and Trump needed to have.
Perhaps Dorsey could have discussed Trump’s utter abuse of the platform; his unrepentant, unchecked daily habit of using Twitter as the ultimate online bully pulpit; or his tendency to act like one of the basement-dwelling misogynist trolls who Twitter (sometimes) suspends. Trump and other public figures have escaped that consequence, Twitter has controversially decided, because their tweets are a matter of public interest (though the company recently announced it’s considering denoting offensive tweets that might have otherwise deleted if, um, the person behind them wasn’t quite so important).
Wouldn’t it have been nice, though, if, after sharing a bountiful lunch spread from McDonald’s, the CEO of the tech giant actually held Trump to the same standard as another human being on the social network? Maybe he would have treated Trump to a passive-aggressive refresher as to the rules, particularly that part about abusive behavior. It sure would have been très cool if Dorsey had politely asked Trump to be mindful about bullying his political adversaries on Twitter at the risk of inciting violence (as he did with Representative Ilhan Omar) or about spewing misogyny (as he did with a sexually suggestive tweet about Senator Kirsten Gillibrand). Or maybe he could have asked (politely, like a Buddhist) that Trump refrain from relentlessly calling the media “the enemy of the people” (as newsrooms nationwide are attacked) or retweeting vile anti-Muslim propaganda and, lest we forget, playing cat and mouse about nuclear war with Kim Jong Un in 280 characters or less. If Dorsey really wanted to make Twitter “healthier and more civil,” he should have a more honest conversation—or even a meaty Twitter thread—with the president. And perhaps get a female CEO.
