Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast recently alongside Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead Vijaya Gadde and independent journalist Tim Pool.
On a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey returned to the show this time accompanied by Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead. Independent journalist Tim Pool also appeared on the show, where he grilled the Twitter executives about their platform, multiple times backing them into a corner and forcing them to answer questions on topics they had previously evaded.
The full podcast is nearly 3 and a half hours long; while there was countless notable moments and confrontations throughout the podcast, Breitbart has chosen to excerpt some of our favorites for readers to enjoy:
1: Tim Pool calls Twitter out for failing to uphold free speech
Free speech was a hot topic throughout most of the conversation, as was the use of bot accounts on Twitter’s network. These topics were combined when Pool made the point that foreign actors were free to utilize Twitter to spread propaganda while American users were being hampered by Twitter’s restrictive policies and rules.
“You’ve now got a platform that’s so powerful in our American discourse that foreign governments are using it as weapons against us,” said Pool. “And you’ve taken a stance against the laws of the United States — I don’t mean against like you’re breaking the law, I mean you have rules which go beyond the scope of the U.S. which will restrict American citizens from being able to participate.”
Pool continued: “Meanwhile, foreign actors are free to do so as long as they play by your rules. So our elections are being threatened by the fact that — if there’s an American citizen that says I don’t believe in your ‘misgendering’ policy and you ban them, that person has been removed from public discourse on Twitter.” Watch the interaction below:
2: Joe Rogan questions Twitter’s left-leaning bias on transgender policy
In another debate surrounding Twitter’s various policies and rules, the topic of the company’s “misgendering” policy came into question. Under this policy, a Twitter user could be banned for referring to a transgender person by a different pronoun. Podcast host Joe Rogan pointed out that while there may be cases when “misgendering” is done in an attempt to harass someone, there are also cases where a user may just be stating a biological fact.
Discussing a case in which a woman was banned from Twitter for stating “a man is never a woman,” Rogan stated: “If she’s saying ‘a man is never a woman,’ if that’s what she’s saying and then biologically correct then obviously we have a debate here, this is not a clear cut – this is not something where you can say ‘water is wet’ or ‘this is dry,’ this is not like something you can prove.”
“This is something where you have to acknowledge that there is an understanding that if someone is a trans person we all agree to consider them a woman and think of them as a woman, talk to them and address them with their preferred name and their preferred pronouns, but biologically this is not accurate. So we have a divide here.”
Wow, the entire interview is fascinating & disturbing. @joerogan @Timcast catch Twitter in multiple lies/misrepresentations. Illuminating.
pic.twitter.com/TkGs9CDPHo— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) March 6, 2019
3: Pool asks why conservative figure using Twitter bots was banned, but Liberals doing the same thing weren’t
In another example of Twitter’s left-leaning bias, Pool raised the issue of the recent ban of conservative activist Jacob Wohl. Wohl was removed from Twitter after he admitted to using multiple fake Twitter accounts to spread information on the platform and stated his plans to use these accounts ahead of the 2020 election. Pool didn’t take issue with the banning of Wohl but rather the fact that Twitter failed to ban a left-wing activist who admitted to doing the same thing.
“Did you investigate Jonathan Morgan?” Pool asked, and Gadde replied, “I don’t know who that is.” Pool pointedly replied: “Why? That’s the important question, why?” Gadde replied: “It might be that someone at Twitter investigated him, I don’t know who that is.”
“One of the issues that I think it’s really important to get to is, you should know who he is,” stated Pool. “He’s more important than Jacob Wohl is but for some reason you know about this conservative guy but not the Democrat who helped meddle in the Alabama Election… it was recently reported and covered by numerous outlets that a group called New Knowledge was meddling in the Alabama election by creating fake Russian accounts to manipulate national media into believing that Roy Moore was propped up by the Russians. Facebook banned him [Morgan] as well as four other people but Twitter didn’t, he’s still active.”
4: Pool and Rogan ask why Antifa is allowed on Twitter but the Proud Boys aren’t
In another exchange, Pool and Rogan discussed the right-wing group The Proud Boys which were recently banned from Twitter. Rogan explained the origin of the Proud Boys as a joke started by conservative commentator Gavin McInnes while Pool pointed out that many far-left and anarchist Antifa groups are allowed to operate on the platform and even post the personal details of law enforcement without repercussion.
“Twitter permanently excised accounts associated with the Proud Boys, Antifa accounts who have broken the accounts rules repeatedly, branded known cells which have been involved in violence, all still active. Is there a reason…?” Gadde replied: “With the Proud Boys we were able to look at documentation and announcements that the leaders of that organization had made and their use of violence in the real world, so that was what we were focused on and subsequent to our decision I believe the FBI also designated them-”
“That’s not true,” interjected Pool who was backed up by Rogan, stating that the Proud Boys had not been designated as a gang by the FBI as had falsely been reported in the past. Rogan explained the origin of the Proud Boys and then criticized Gavin McInnes for his previous calls to retaliate to violence from leftists with more violence. Pool continued: “So then you have the Antifa groups that are engaging in the same thing, y’know the famous bike lock basher incident where a guy showed up, hit seven people over the head with a bike lock… you have other groups like By Any Means Neccessary, you have in Portland for instance there are specific branded factions.”
“The tweet I mentioned earlier where they doxed ICE agents and said ‘do whatever inspires you with this information’ and you’re tagged in it a million times,” said Pool gesturing to Dorsey. “I know you probably can’t see it, but you can actually see that some of the tweets in the thread are removed but the main tweet itself from an Anti Fascist account linking to a website straight up saying ‘here’s the private home details of these law enforcement officers’ is not removed since September.”
5: Pool refuses to name accounts that threatened him after podcast is finished
The Joe Rogan Experience podcast suffered a slight technical error once the podcast was over, where the livestream froze and continued to broadcast the conversation in the room after the episode was finished recording. In the moments after the podcast was finished, Gadde can be heard asking Pool to provide the names of the accounts that have sent him threats and abuse via Twitter; Poole outright refused.
“I just wanna follow up on a couple of things because they worry me,” Gadde can be heard saying. “You mentioned an Antifa account that doxed policemen can you please just send that over to me?” Pool provided a shortened link that showed the account which doxed ICE agents. Gadde then continued: “Would you DM me, I’ll follow you, the accounts that you said have threatened you.”
“No. I believe in minimizing harm-” Pool started to saying before Gadde interjected. “I won’t take action on them but I wanna understand why we didn’t take action on them and I can’t learn from that unless you-” Pool then began to reply by making a point about the banning of conservative commentator Lauren Southern from Patreon, it was then that Joe Rogan shouted over all of those speaking to warn them that the stream was still live and to leave the recording booth.
Hear the accidentally broadcasted conversation below:
Mic's still HOT on the Joe Rogan Podcast, after sign off.
LoLTim Pool denies giving Vijaya account names
Joe has to come back and stop conversation, because stream froze and was still recording.#jre #joerogan #timpool #jackdorsey #vijayagadde pic.twitter.com/zpEsuoZuNG
— Adrian Chavez (@adrian_olak) March 6, 2019
Overall, this podcast managed to address many of the concerns people had with Rogan’s first interview with Dorsey which was believed to be too easy on the Twitter CEO. During the course of this three and a half hour long conversation, Dorsey and Gadde were forced multiple times to justify their actions and take note of the problems that their platform faced.
Watch the podcast in full here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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