Twitter CEO prepares to face Congress over bias allegations

WASHINGTON — Twitter’s CEO says the company is not biased against Republicans or Democrats and is working on ways to ensure that debate is healthier on its platform.

In testimony released ahead of a House hearing Wednesday, Jack Dorsey says he wants to be clear: “Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.”

The testimony comes as some Republicans say conservatives are censored on social media and have questioned the platform’s algorithms. Dorsey will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday afternoon on that subject, after a morning hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference on social media.

Dorsey said in the House testimony that the company has continued to identify accounts that may be linked to a Russian internet agency that was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year. The indictment detailed a plot by Russian intelligence officers to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election, charging several people associated with the Internet Research Agency with running a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Republican Donald Trump.

To address concerns about bias, Dorsey offered an explanation of how Twitter uses “behavioral signals,” such as the way the service’s accounts interact and behave. Those signals can help weed out spam and abuse. He said such analysis “does not consider in any way” political views or ideology.