Seth Rogen Blasts Twitter CEO for Verifying White Supremacists
By Todd Spangler
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Seth Rogen says he’s been directly in touch with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about verifying “white supremacists” on the social platform — and the actor-comedian now is ripping into the tech exec over the issue.
Rogen, in a tweet Tuesday, wrote: “I’ve been DMing with @jack about his bizarre need to verify white supremacists on his platform for the last 8 months or so, and after all the exchanges, I’ve reached a conclusion: the dude simply does not seem to give a fuck.”
https://.com/Sethrogen/status/1014168992376766470
Twitter declined to comment. Dorsey had not responded to Rogen’s tweet as of press time.
Hate speech and abusive behavior more broadly have been issues threatening Twitter’s growth and they’ve periodically flared into PR problems for the company. Dorsey has routinely pledged to make “safety” a No. 1 priority at Twitter and has said he’s implemented a program to measure the “health” of conversations on the platform .
Last December, Twitter banned several accounts associated with far-right extremists , including at least one that has been retweeted by President Trump, as part of instituting new rules against hate and harassment.
Some of the accounts banned in late 2017 included the Traditionalist Worker Party, a group of white supremacists known for its anti-semitism, the pro-confederate League of the South, as well as the American Nazi Party. Twitter also banned accounts from individuals associated with these groups, as well as far-right extremists from the U.K., including the anti-immigrant group Britain First.
In February, Dorsey said the company’s efforts to improve “information quality” extend to providing tools to help users ascertain the credibility of sources. “Twitter is a very good mirror for what’s going on in the world,” Dorsey said , speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. “At our worst it makes people be a lot more reflexive, and at our best it encourages people to be a lot more reflective.”
