Ellen Pao to Jack Dorsey: It’s time to get Trump off Twitter

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As inauguration festivities kicked off Friday morning, Americans in the “Never Trump” camp had to finally face the reality that Donald Trump is, indeed, their new president.

But while anti-Trumpers can’t do much now to get him out of the White House, two Silicon Valley investors and execs have launched a last-ditch effort to get Trump kicked out of a place that means almost as much to him — Twitter.

Kapor Center investor and diversity in tech advocate Ellen Pao and former Twitter exec and Atipica founder Laura Gomez penned a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Friday morning, calling on him to suspend Trump from the social media platform that gave the real estate tycoon much of his political power.

“@realdonaldtrump is bringing out the worst of Twitter  —  the company, the platform and its users,” they wrote, using Trump’s Twitter handle, which has more than 20 million followers. Recode published the letter. “He’s using his manipulation skills and your platform to bully others, and to incite supporters to harass people  —  both on Twitter and in real life.”

A master Twitter user, Trump is famous for speaking his mind in 140-character bursts, with little censorship or apparent self-control — a quality that made supporters fall in love, and often angered those on the receiving end of his online insults. According to The New York Times, which catalogued every tweet Trump posted since declaring his candidacy in 2015, he has insulted 305 people, places and things on the platform, including journalists, other nations, a college student who asked him a question, a Neil Young song and a lectern in the Oval Office.

He recently attacked civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis and actress Meryl Streep.

And as Mercury News reporter Queenie Wong reported this week, Trump, who will keep his own handle rather than taking on the @POTUS account outgoing President Barack Obama used, shows no sign of ramping down his Twitter use once he takes office.

So Pao and Gomez say it’s time for Dorsey to step in. Trump’s abusive messages have unleashed a stream of hate and incited others to attack, which violates Twitter’s rules, they wrote.

“We understand that the complexities of this company you founded and lead make suspending Trump seem like a hard decision,” Pao and Gomez wrote. “It’s tempting  —  and popular  —  to frame a social network as a neutral platform and disown responsibility for content. It saves costs, it avoids hard decisions, it absolves leaders and employees of the sins committed by users. It’s the standard behavior of all large social platforms.”

And Trump’s presence drives traffic to Twitter, increasing the value of the struggling social media platform.

Dorsey has intervened in Twitter trolling in the past, saying the platform needs to do a better job of cracking down on abuse after Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones became a victim. He also has addressed Trump’s use of Twitter, calling it “fascinating” and “complicated.”

But suspending Trump’s account now could have vast repercussions, argues New York Times writer Farhad Manjoo. As the social media platform is increasingly used for political dialogue, if Dorsey suspends Trump, the next target could be political activists or dissidents.

“Suspending Mr. Trump’s account would be censorship,” he wrote. “Though Twitter is legally free to censor whomever it wants, it also has a duty to recognize how its actions affect the larger world.”

Photo: In this Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2016, file photo, then President-elect Donald Trump speaks to reporters at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

 

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