Dear Jack Dorsey,
Please cancel U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Twitter accounts– both the official @POTUS one and @RealDonaldTrump.
Twitter does not have to persist in giving the president a platform where he lies in verifiable ways that responsible media outlets — real news — have detailed time and again.
Twitter does not have to enable the president to say hurtful things, things that violate Twitter’s own rules against abusive behavior.
After all, according to the page to which I linked above, “Twitter reserves the right to immediately terminate your account without further notice in the event that, in its judgment, you violate these Rules or the Terms of Service.”
Even if you and the Twitter legal team were to scrutinize both the rules and the Terms of Service and conclude that you cannot under the current rules terminate the president’s account, then that should not prove a barrier. On your website it states, “Please note that we may need to change these rules from time to time and reserve the right to do so. The most current version will always be available at twitter.com/rules.”
If you need to, please change the rules.
I’m sure you can come up with something logical and defensible.
In doing this, you’d not only be acting as a patriot, but you’d also be joining the other powerful CEOs who have stepped away from the president’s various councils and advisory groups because they find his behavior repugnant and un-American.
Please stop enabling the president’s repugnant behavior.
Wednesday, when a dozen of your peers — these same CEOs — decided to resign en masse from their advisory roles on White House councils:
Before they could make a statement announcing their decision, however, Mr. Trump spoke. He had caught wind of their planned defection and wanted to have the last word. Taking to Twitter, he wrote: “Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” (New York Times.)
Twitter, the company you lead, allowed the president to try to prevent the CEOs from making an effective statement.
The president uses Twitter to lie, to hurt people, to shame people, to subvert the freedom of the press and in doing so he is making this country a lesser place than it should be.
While you cannot make the president an honest man or a decent president, you could make it harder for him to do his job badly.
Please, Mr. Dorsey, cancel the president’s Twitter accounts.
Sincerely,
Brad Berens (@bradberens)
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