Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey unfollows Mark Zuckerberg on micro-blogging site

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey unfollowed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his platform in an apparent dislike of latter’s way of running his company. Dorsey has been critical of Facebook’s policy on issues like freedom of expression, fake news and political advertisements.

Dorsey made sure the world took note of him unfollowing Zuckerberg and followed a Twitter account @bigtechalert which reports on activities of tech companies CEOs. "@jack is now following @BigTechAlert," tweeted the account. Soon after this, Dorsey unfollowed Zuckerberg that was promptly reported by the alert account. "@jack is no longer following @finkd," tweeted @BigTechAlert.

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Steps taken by Twitter against misinformation

Recently, Twitter stopped accepting political advertisements, starting from November 22, after Dorsey made the announcement on October 31. In a series of tweets, Dorsey said that internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, but similar power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions. 

“Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale,” tweeted Dorsey while making the announcement. Twitter is also planning to fund a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media.

Read: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Pokes Fun At Facebook’s New All-caps Logo

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, has not been on the same page and denied to take such steps for his platform. Though he announced that Facebook has started rolling out its dedicated ‘news tab’, curated by professionals with a journalism background. Zuckerberg, in a discussion with Robert Thomson, Chief Executive of News Corp, said there is a dedicated space in the Facebook app that is focussed on high-quality journalism.

“We have put together a team of folks who have experience in journalism and a background in this. I don't think it is something that is done just by computers,” said the Facebook CEO.

Read: Twitter To Ban All Political Advertising, Says CEO Jack Dorsey

Read: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Defends Free Speech