Twitter Inc (NASDAQ:TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey was called out for tweeting during Thursday’s congressional hearing. Twitter, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) appeared before a House committee to answer questions about misinformation and extremism on their platforms.
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Dorsey tweets a poll during the congressional hearing
Rep. Kathleen Rice had a question for Dorsey during the hearing. However, before she asked her question about the platforms’ ability to radicalize U.S. military members and veterans, she asked him why he was tweeting during the hearing.
Dorsey tweeted a poll with a single question mark and then “yes” and “no” answers.
?
— jack (@jack) March 25, 2021
It’s unclear what Dorsey meant by the tweet, but TechCrunch suggests that it may have been social commentary of an expression of frustration with the congressional hearing. It required Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to give only “yes” or “no” answers instead of commenting on the complicated questions. If they went beyond a “yes” or “no,” their responses were cut off.
Dorsey Called Out For Tweeting During Hearing
Before launching into her question, Rice asked Dorsey whether yes or no was winning on his poll. The representatives and the CEOs were meeting via Zoom conference. He responded with a simple “yes,” using the same monotone voice he used during the rest of the hearing.
Rice responded with “Hmmm,” adding, “Your multitasking skills are quite impressive.”
However, she was clearly being sarcastic and wasn’t impressed with his skills at all.
More than 105,000 people have voted in Dorsey’s Twitter poll as of the time of this writing. “Yes” continues to win, demonstrating Twitter users’ optimism even though the question was not given.
More Than Just Tweeting
According to Business Insider, Dorsey wasn’t just tweeting a poll during the hearing. He was also reading tweets and liking those that pointed out when lawmakers mispronounced Pichai’s name and cut off the three CEOs mid-sentence.
Dorsey also confirmed to one Twitter user that he was barefoot during the hearing and retweeted another user’s post saying that “It would be awesome if some Member engaged [Jack] in a substantive discussion on Twitter’s ‘protocols’ idea.” Dorsey had tweeted something about Twitter’s open-source social media protocol Bluesky before the hearing.
Twitter is a part of the Entrepreneur Index, which tracks 60 of the largest publicly traded companies managed by their founders or their founders’ families. Dorsey has been CEO of the micro-blogging platform since it was founded. He co-founded the social network with Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass in 2006.
