Twitter CEO: Actions not based on political bias

Faced with criticisms from President Donald Trump that Twitter is “shadow banning” and silencing conservative voices, chief executive Jack Dorsey admitted that those who work for the social media giant have their own biases — and that they’re “more left-leaning.”

Dorsey, however, said in his interview with CNN on Saturday that political ideology does not influence how Twitter determines what is and is not appropriate behavior on the platform.

“The real question behind the question is, ‘Are we doing something according to political ideology or view points?’ And we are not. Period,” Dorsey said. “We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior.”

“We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is more left-leaning,” he added. “And I think it’s important to articulate our own bias and to share it with people so that people understand us. But we need to remove our bias from how we act and our policies and our enforcement.”

Dorsey’s comments come amid a debate over how tech companies influence public discourse. Apple, Facebook, YouTube and Spotify have taken aggressive steps against right-wing talk show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for violating their hate speech policies. Spotify, Facebook and YouTube removed Jones from their platforms, and Apple followed suit by removing the majority of podcasts published by Jones’ website, Infowars, from iTunes and its podcast apps.

Twitter also suspended Jones’ account for a week after he urged his supporters to get their “battle rifles” ready against antifascists and the mainstream media. Jones made the comments on his show, which was published