An Interview With Jack Dorsey

🌈 Abstract

The article is a wide-ranging interview with Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, covering his perspectives on the challenges of content moderation, the need for decentralized social media protocols, and his involvement with projects like Bluesky and Nostr.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Jack Dorsey's Departure from Bluesky

1. Why did Jack Dorsey leave Bluesky?

• Dorsey felt Bluesky was moving away from the original vision of an open, decentralized protocol and instead becoming another centralized social media platform.
• He became more interested in Nostr, a truly decentralized protocol without a central authority, and decided to focus his efforts there instead.
• Dorsey felt Bluesky was starting to implement moderation tools and policies similar to Twitter's, which went against the principles of decentralization he was seeking.

2. Was there any resistance from Bluesky when Dorsey wanted to leave?

• Dorsey says there was general agreement that they wanted different things, and since the Bluesky board had only met once, there wasn't a lot of attachment from his side.
• He respects Bluesky's founder Jay Graber, but felt their visions had diverged too much.

[02] Dorsey's Perspective on Twitter's Content Moderation

1. How did Twitter end up becoming the "face of censorship" during Dorsey's tenure?

• Dorsey explains that Twitter's reliance on a brand advertising business model made it vulnerable to pressure from advertisers, who could threaten to pull their budgets if they didn't like the content on the platform.
• As a public company without strong defenses like dual-class voting shares, Twitter had little choice but to cave to these advertiser demands, leading to the perception of censorship.
• Dorsey says his goal was to move Twitter towards a decentralized protocol model where the company wouldn't have the power to remove content, but this was difficult to achieve as a public company.

2. How did Dorsey view the Trump suspension and Twitter's overall approach to content moderation?

• Dorsey acknowledged that the Trump suspension was the right decision for Twitter's business, as it would have lost major advertisers otherwise.
• However, he felt it was the wrong decision for the internet and the world, as no company should have that level of power to remove people from the platform.
• Dorsey wanted to remove Twitter's ability to make those types of decisions by transitioning to a decentralized protocol model.

[03] Dorsey's Vision for the Future of Social Media

1. What is Dorsey's view on the need for decentralized social media protocols?

• Dorsey believes centralized social media platforms like Twitter and X (formerly Twitter) are inherently vulnerable to censorship, either from advertisers, governments, or other external pressures.
• He sees decentralized protocols like Nostr as the solution, as they remove the ability for any single entity to control or censor the platform.
• Dorsey argues that true freedom of speech can only be achieved through decentralized technologies that no company or government can compromise.

2. How does Dorsey view the current state of social media platforms like X (Twitter) under Elon Musk?

• Dorsey believes Musk's approach of aligning X's policies with local laws, rather than a global free speech stance, is a reasonable alternative.
• However, Dorsey still sees this as problematic, as it leaves X vulnerable to government pressure and censorship demands.
• Ultimately, Dorsey believes the only way to truly guarantee free speech is through decentralized protocols that no single entity controls.