After Twitter creator, executive chairman, and product lead Jack Dorsey accepted the company’s award for Biggest Social Impact at the Crunchies, TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis asked him about a recent, controversial decision to block individual tweets on a country-by-country basis. Will that hurt Twitter’s ability to make a positive impact on the future?
“Absolutely not,” Dorsey said. “It actually censors less.”
That’s because the only alternative would be “global” censorship of the entire site in certain countries, he said. He also said it allows Twitter to be transparent when an individual tweet has been hidden.
Dorsey also talked more generally about Twitter’s impact, agreeing with Alexia that its real power comes in its ability to handle a range of communication, whether it’s daily life, personal struggles, or broad political issues.
“That range is really, really hard to do for most technologies,” he said.
Dorsey had to do a second interview when he won for best founder, covering his roles at both Twitter and Square (where he’s founder and CEO). Asked to choose between the two companies Dorsey said it will be like choosing between two members of the family. And when Alexia jokingly repeated the common belief that to accomplish what he does, Dorsey must not sleep, he laughed, “I sleep, I sleep.” How much? Four or five hours a night.
You can watch the full video of Dorsey’s “social impact” interview below.