Twitter’s Jack Dorsey trolls US politicians during hearing

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted his frustration with US lawmakers’ questions on the social media platform during a hearing about misinformation on Thursday, leading one member of congress to call out his multitasking.

Lawmakers grilled Dorsey and the CEOs of Facebook and Google parent Alphabet almost five hours. Tensions were high as they asked them to answer “yes or no” to questions ranging from whether their platforms bore any responsibility for the 6 January riot to whether they understood the difference between the two words.

During the hearing, Dorsey tweeted “?” with a poll asking Twitter users to vote “yes” or “no”. Democratic representative Kathleen Rice asked: “Mr Dorsey, what is winning, yes or no, on your Twitter account poll?”

Dorsey told her that “yes” was winning, to which she replied: “Your multitasking skills are quite impressive.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai were also witnesses at the joint hearing by two subcommittees of the house energy and commerce committee.

Lawmakers from both parties tried throughout the hearing to pin down the tech CEOs with questions needing only “yes” or “no” answers, interrupting them when they tried to give longer ones. Lawmakers quizzed the executives over concerns from Covid-19 misinformation, harassment, hate speech and extremism.

As the hearing took place, Dorsey also liked tweets criticising aspects of the session, including asking why members of congress were mispronouncing Pichai’s name, and replied to a tweet confirming that he was barefoot during the call. His poll on Thursday afternoon had more than 71 000 votes.  — Reported by Elizabeth Culliford, with additional reporting by Diane Bartz, (c) 2021 Reuters