Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admits website contributed to Capitol riots

In a rare moment of self-admonition, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the influential social media platform he co-founded may have contributed to the Capitol riots.

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., asked during a Thursday hearing whether social media services contributed to the spread of misinformation that led to the Jan. 6 events, and Dorsey was the lone tech executive to say “yes.” The unrest at the Capitol on Jan. 6 left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.

Dorsey did attach a caveat to his response: “But you also have to take into consideration the broader ecosystem,” he said, per the New York Times. “It’s not just about the technological systems that we use.”

Hours after the Capitol riots, Twitter was the first big platform to censure former President Donald Trump after he shared a video in which he called the rioters “very special” and “unfairly treated,” but wavered on removing the video from the site. YouTube and Facebook removed the video sooner than Twitter.

But those companies’ respective head honchos, Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg, did not answer Rep. Doyle, both instead opting to avoid the question, Newsweek reported. Pichai, Google’s CEO, said it was a “complex question,” while Zuckerberg completely deferred responsibility on his platform’s role in disseminating misinformation.

All three platforms are known avenues for misinformation, especially among the right.

A New York University study published earlier this month found that far-right misinformation was more engaged on Facebook than credible news, effectively forming a feedback loop in which it spread faster than credible news. A 2018 report from the Guardian also found that YouTube’s algorithm makes it easy for viral misinformation to spread through the site’s recommended clips.

As for Twitter, the site has taken a slightly less opaque role in curtailing misinformation in recent years — for instance, by repeatedly putting warnings on prominent pieces of misinformation by the likes of Trump and others — but still served as a viable platform for its spread, as evidenced by a Brookings Institution analysis published last year.

A Twitter spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from SFGATE.