Twitter too harsh at times in banning accounts: Jack Dorsey

Twitter has been too harsh at times when it comes to banning accounts in the wake of alleged political bias, harassment, hate speech or other policy violations on its platform, CEO Jack Dorsey has admitted. Appearing on comedian Joe Rogan`s podcast, Dorsey said the platform has been too aggressive in banning certain accounts. "Dorsey told Rogan that the company had researched the incidents, finding there were "thousands and thousands` of tweets being directed at a small number of journalists and that many of those sending them were accounts that had been specifically created to evade a ban," Fox News reported late Wednesday.

Twitter Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde said that the company would learn from its past mistakes. Twitter has been accused by the governments -- from the US to India -- of allowing political bias to flourish on its platform while banning certain right-wing or conservative accounts hurriedly.

"Where we draw a line is when people use their voice and their platform to use their voice to silence someone else on the platform. It`s rare for us to outright ban someone without warning," said Gadde.

There have been several incidents in the recent past where Twitter users in India, including journalists, posted abusive posts addressed to them on their accounts, asking Twitter to take immediate action.

According to Colin Crowell, Global Vice President of Public Policy of Twitter, not many Twitter users in India are aware of how to report abuse or harassment they face on the open communication platform, opting for the wrong way of posting an abusive photo or tweet and then requesting us to take action.

"One of the things we note in India is under-reporting of such issues. Users might take a screenshot of abuse or harassment they have been subjected to on Twitter, and say see, here is what has occurred to me. But they do not report that to us," Crowell told IANS in a recent interview.

"Our team can only take action if the issue is reported to us. Twitter serves over 500 million tweets a day and we do not read all of those. So reporting abuse to us is incredibly important," Crowell added.