Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, during a late-night thread on his social media website, stood by the decision to add fact-check links to two of President Donald Trump's tweets. He also defended Yoel Roth, the head of site integrity, from attacks over Twitter's fact-checking policy and his own tweets that were critical of President Donald Trump and other Republicans.
"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me," Dorsey said in his first tweet, posted at around midnight. "Please leave our employees out of this. We’ll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make."
"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth,'" he continued. "Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions."
"Per our Civic Integrity policy the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We’re updating the link on @realDonaldTrump’s tweet to make this more clear," Dorsey added.
His comments came after a preview clip aired of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg telling Fox News' Dana Perino that he does not believe Facebook should be the "arbiter of truth" with "everything that people say online." The full interview will air Thursday afternoon.
"Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," Zuckerberg said.
Twitter is under fire not only for adding the fact-checking tag onto Trump's tweets but using stories from The Washington Post and CNN as sources for information concerning the topic of mail-in ballots.
Conservatives criticized Dorsey's tweets, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who responded that his comments make him "accountable for allowing the Chinese Communist Party to abuse this site with misinformation & propaganda spread across the globe — all while the CCP bans and suppresses their own people from using Twitter!"
Meanwhile, Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday in response to Twitter's action, one day after he threatened to either regulate or shut down social media sites and accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 election.