'And I don’t think that’s fair or right,' said Jack Dorsey
Conservative employees of Twitter are allegedly being “silenced” by the liberal voices within the team, according to CEO Jack Dorsey. “And I don’t think that’s fair or right,” he said.
While Dorsey has clarified before that Twitter as a platform isn’t skewed in favour of left-leaning political views, he understands the people who comprise the team have their own political biases.
In an interview with Recode, the Twitter CEO said conservative employees “feel silenced by just the general swirl of what they perceive to be the broader percentage of leanings within the company.”
“We have a lot of conservative-leaning folks in the company as well, and to be honest, they don’t feel safe to express their opinions at the company,” he said.
Being honest about these inherent biases is necessary for Dorsey: “I think it’s more and more important to at least clarify what our own bias leans towards, and just express it.”
The CEO said he would rather know the political views one leans toward than “interpret [them] through their actions.” He has also been listening to the feedback of people from a wide spectrum of political backgrounds.
“We should make sure that everyone feels safe to express themselves within the company, no matter where they come from and what their background is,” Dorsey told Recode.
Twitter isn’t the only Silicon Valley tech company dealing with a clash of liberal and conservative political views. Facebook is also reportedly fraught with in-fighting over differing ideologies.