Twitter CEO: Yeah, My Conservative Employees Feel Unsafe and Judged
I feel real bad about that. Really. I do.
Twitter has long been adversarial to conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and other right-leaning users; we’ve been suspended and/or banned so often that a lot of conservatives have a second account in place should they end up in the infamous #TwitterGulag.
Since the outrage and backlash against these blatant attempts to silence any and everyone not toeing the regressive line, Twitter has become more creative in its efforts to silence “wrong thought.” First it was shadow-banning, and when they got called out on that, they started a new and deeply bizarre not shadowbanning shadow-banning policy.
For some reason, Twitter waited a couple of weeks after Big Tech banded together to ban the admittedly odious Alex Jones before joining in.
It’s no accident that top former Obama admin officials have landed lucrative, powerful positions at lucrative, powerful internet and social media outlets. From Amazon to Facebook, from Twitter to Netflix, the Obama administration has woven itself into Big Tech.
The Washington Post reported in its 2015 article “Why Silicon Valley is the new revolving door for Obama staffers”:
The affinity between the White House and the tech industry has enriched Obama’s campaigns through donations, and it has presented lucrative opportunities for staffers who leave for the private sector.
On Thursday, former White House press secretary Jay Carney joined Amazon as its senior vice president for worldwide corporate affairs. Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe runs policy and strategy for Uber, the car service start-up. And several other former administration officials are peppered throughout Silicon Valley in various positions, lobbying on important policy issues related to taxes, consumer privacy and more.
Last year, Plouffe joined Facebook CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg’s “philanthropy team.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
WaPo continues:
Although a handful of officials from previous administrations have joined high-tech firms in the past, there have been “orders of magnitude greater penetration” under Obama, Randlett said, where figures such as Plouffe have taken the campaign’s tactics to the private sector. “In the past, it was in one direction.”
Facebook has hired several former White House officials, including Marne Levine, who was chief of staff for former National Economic Council director Lawrence H. Summers. Louisa Terrell, who now works at the FCC, joined Facebook after serving as legal counsel to Obama.
Airbnb has three White House press office alumni: Clark Stevens as its global head of strategic safety initiatives and Nick Papas and Courtney O’Donnell at its communications team. A fourth former Obama staffer, Marie Aberger, recently left the firm.
The mobile payment company Square hired the then-acting U.S. Trade Representative Demetrios J. Marantis in 2013 to head its international government, regulatory and policy shop, while two of its communications managers, Colleen Murray and Semonti Stephens, worked at the Treasury Department and the first lady’s office, respectively.
Key Obama admin figures have been quietly dispersed to every major social media outlet—and to storefronts like Amazon, to entertainment outlets like Netflix, and etc.
Twitter’s involvement in this progressive thought police and regressive policy web is so profound that even its CEO admitted that his conservative employees “feel unsafe” and unable to express their own opinions.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the social media giant’s staffers who have right-leaning political views don’t feel comfortable to speak up because of the company’s ultra-liberal work environment.
“We have a lot of conservative-leaning folks in the company as well, and to be honest, they don’t feel safe to express their opinions at the company,” Dorsey told New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen in an interview published on Friday by Recode.
“They do feel silenced by just the general swirl of what they perceive to be the broader percentage of leanings within the company, and I don’t think that’s fair or right,” he added. “We should make sure that everyone feels safe to express themselves within the company, no matter where they come from and what their background is. I mean, my dad was a Republican.”
Your dad was a Republican, Jack? What does that have to do with your employees feeling that their political views, ideology, and worldview are unwelcome in your company? Do you need to post “conservatives need not apply” signs? What are you going to do with all those heretics running around Twit HQ?
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Comments
I don’t understand why you continue to use that crap. Just quit. If just half of conservatives cancelled their accounts Twitter’s stock price would crater and the schadenfreude would be oh so delicious. There are a million ways to communicate, why continue to use this one when they obviously hate you so much?
Sorry, Paul, but because I have never used Twitter/Facebook/ Instagram, etc., my stopping my usage would not have the slightest impact on their income or stock prices.
I think his point sailed right over your head. Forget about how much money they supposedly make. If you don’t use these apps, they can’t censor you or ban you. I only maintain a fake fakebook account for the sole purpose of commenting on blogs that unfortunately use fakebook for their commenting platform, and I’ve never used twitter or any other “social” media (really, “anti-social” media). Their all just fads anyway.
The problem is that they can gate-keep the people who don’t know that they are doing this. They are posing a public squares, and unless someone knows better, they will get a very biased view of the world that is being put forward as neutral.
Its the same as when the Times is reporting false information; yes, you may know that it is not true, but simply stopping using it is not sufficient: you must make people aware that a paper of Record is lying to them, or they will continue to use it.
We have a lot of conservative-leaning folks in the company as well
Somehow, I doubt it.
They’re just tossing in a minor variant of the old “some of my best friends are brain-damaged creepazoids” claim.
The difficulty for those tech companies is that the engineers are mostly conservative or libertarian.
Why? If you don’t work with nature as it exists you will get crushed. Your designs won’t work.
Not quite so absolutely true in the social sphere because the ultimate feedback takes longer.
Me? I’m a libertarian aerospace engineer living in small town Illinois. I’m not a team Trump guy by any means. (I did vote for him) I’m a what works guy. Because no political team in this age has all the answers.
One thing Republicans don’t get (when the Soviets had the problem it was more evident) – Black Markets are a sign of improper governance. Generally. But not always. Alcohol Prohibition is a prime example. But then there was Murder Inc. Which was a relic of the gangster wars. The out of work gangsters needed jobs. And that is all they were fitted for.
Prohibition began as a religious movement. Percentage-wise in Congress, exactly as many (D)s supported it as (R)s, and it was a (D)-led House and a (D)-led Senate that were responsible for the 18th amendment.
A (R)-led House and a (R)-led Senate proposed the 21st Amendment, which got rid of prohibition.
Might want to take some remedial history classes.
Well Republicans have a long history of taking up failed Prohibitions. When the Democrats have given them up.
I was thinking more of Republicans wanting to recreate thye abortion Black Market.
As to moonshine? Well look at what this feller noted.
The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. — G.K. Chesterton
So I’m not he first one to notice.
Don’t forget to add that the temperance movement was also led by some very powerful women leaders which included the likes of Carrie Nation and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.
Of course, history dispels the narrative that until women got the right to vote, their voices weren’t heard and they didn’t amount to anything in the grand scheme of things because they were being oppressed by white men denying them the right to vote.
I am a women, and am old enough to remember many of the terrible biases we had to endure, and the lost opportunities, because I am a woman. Maybe I didn’t fight hard enough, maybe I didn’t have enough confidence, but the second class citizens was very real.
People, both men and many women don’t understand the anger, I do. Things are much better for women because of the women who fought tooth and nail for the same rights as men.
I don’t appreciate many of the feminists today, they want blood, they don’t want equality, but it still irks me that we haven’t had a woman President. I think Sarah could have been a fine leader, but I am still waiting.
“The difficulty for those tech companies is that the engineers are mostly conservative or libertarian.”
You don’t know a lot of programmers, do you? I don’t know about engineers, I don’t consider programmers to be engineers, but the vast majority of them are far, far left of mainstream Americans. Source: I’m a programmer and work with them, fwiw.
I was thinking of electrical engineers.
I know quite a few programmers.
That is why I didn’t mention them.
In Programming E does not necessarily equal IR.
“They do feel silenced by just the general swirl of what they perceive to be the broader percentage of leanings within the company”
Admitting the problem while minimizing it. That’s a nice trick. Notice that he doesn’t mention the real reason Conservatives feel the need to keep quiet: Because Liberals are openly hostile to anyone who isn’t one of “them.”
In private life if your liberal friends stop talking to you you can ignore them. If they attack you, you can call the police. But at your job when they stop working with you, or try to get you fired, it’s a much worse problem.
If you won’t even talk about the magnitude of that problem, why should we take you at all seriously when you claim to care?
#NoJudgmentSelective. They’re Pro-Choice.
You missed part of it.
He admits that conservatives are afraid to express their opinions.
Then he ASSURES you that there is ABSOLUTELY NO BIAS at Twitter when evaluating reports and accounts.
Revoke their protections. They want to continue this bullshit of censoring and fact-checking content, they’re publishers, and legally liable AS publishers of content.
I absolutely agree with this and wish more people would start talking about it.
Trust-busting, or more regs on tech companies would be solving a problem with More Government, which is a terrible idea proposed by terrible people. The ‘bloggers union’ thing is just an awful idea. None of these solutions will work.
If I worked there, I’d be suing over the hostile environment.
CEO has already publicly admitted guilt.
Clueless idiot.
Bitter employees tend to leave big bad ass proverbial poison pills laying around. Their sole purpose of enduring the vile contempt of a hostile work environment becomes—effing you over.
I’ve seen pissed off employees unleash viruses that take down more than the victims will ever admit publicly… and that was with a few moments notice.
When these chickens come home to roost, it will make O’keefe seem like Mother Theresa.
“Twitter CEO: Yeah, My Conservative Employees Feel Unsafe and Judged”
Translation: “I see to it my Conservative employees feel unsafe and judged.”
In any event, the first quote is an admission of a hostile work environment. These employees have quite a lawsuit against Twitter and their managers – and their fellow leftist employees – and ironically, in all jurisdictions: California.
Political affiliation isn’t a protected class under Federal or California law, so a hostile work environment lawsuit will get nowhere. Even if it was, I wouldn’t trust the California judiciary to fairly handle the case.
Not all Conservatives set up a “mine field” that another employee trips in the future. Some of us see the bigger picture of life and seriously try to do a good job for which we understand we won’t be remembered or thanked for on this side of eternity. We do it because it (making our place of business work better) is the right thing to do, for the right reason.
You might say I’m a “Boy Scout (before that group opened itself up to deviants),” but I believe in leaving a place better than I found it. You might even call it Karma. I sleep VERY WELL each night, not questioning my decision or my character.
Twitter, Plan B:
1. Invite employees to share their opinions on internal Company forums. Allow them to post “anonymously,” even though you can easily find out who posted what.
2. Then, fire any employees stupid enough to do this.