Visits: 5
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is grappling with the unintended consequences of his invention, like many of his peers in the technology industry.
On stage at Wired’s 25th anniversary summit on Monday, he spoke in a forthright way about the problem of users only see views, news and opinions from one perspective.
“I think Twitter does contribute to filter bubbles and I think that’s wrong of us, we need to fix it,” he said.
In his view, a big reason for that is the fact that users only follow accounts they agree with. And that means it’s very unlikely that they’ll see tweets that share an opposing point of view.
He gave an example of how during the social media firestorm in the months before the Brexit vote, many users only saw tweets from people advocating for or against the United Kingdom remaining within the European Union.
A solution to that problem, in his view, is to provide them with a way to see tweets from both sides by following a topic rather than a person.
“If I’m following an account with a particular viewpoint versus the ability to follow a topic or interest or event … like Brexit to vote leave… there might be a few tweets that counter it,” he said.
At present, Dorsey admitted, “we’re not giving them (users) the tools to have the opportunity to break down the filter bubble.”