EXECUTIVE DECISIONS

Report: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Intervened to Save Alex Jones, Richard Spencer

The Twitter CEO overruled staff to keep Jones and Richard Spencer on the platform, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey personally intervened to prevent other executives from booting Infowars founder Alex Jones and white nationalist Richard Spencer off the social media platform, The Wall Street Journal reports. Sources cited by the Journal on Monday said Dorsey has at times frustrated other executives and staffers by jumping in at the last minute to make decisions on whether or not controversial figures should be suspended. Last month, Dorsey reportedly told one person he’d overruled a staff decision to expel Jones from the platform. Jones was ultimately hit with a seven-day suspension for posting inflammatory content, but Dorsey had defended the company’s decision not to ban him prior to that. In another case in November 2016, Dorsey overturned a decision to ban Spencer for operating too many different accounts, according to a source cited in the report. Claims of Dorsey’s personal intervention in content decisions—which Twitter dismissed as “completely and totally false”—come just days before a hearing before the House Commerce Committee, where the Twitter CEO will be grilled on whether the platform is censoring conservative figures. President Trump has railed against social media in recent weeks, claiming a “dangerous” censorship campaign is underway to suppress conservative voices.