Report: Jack Dorsey Told Ilhan Omar In Phone Call That Trump's 9/11 Tweet Didn't Violate Twitter's Rules
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Rep. Ilhan Omar reportedly spoke with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on a phone call this week in which the social media executive allegedly said that President Donald Trump didn't violate the platform's rules for a tweet that resulted in a deluge of death threats toward the Minnesota lawmaker.
The Washington Post reports that the freshman congresswoman and Dorsey spoke on the phone Tuesday in a conversation focused on the president's April 12 tweet, which showed a video edited to suggest that Omar was being dismissive of the 9/11 attacks.
Trump's tweet used a clip of a speech Omar recently gave to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in which she described the 2001 terror attack on as "some people did something." The president's tweet juxtaposed that clip with footage of the planes hitting the World Trade Center.
Following the tweet, Omar received a torrent of online death threats. Her defenders, including many of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, said her words were taken out of context.
In her March 23 speech, Omar tried to differentiate the 9/11 attackers from Muslims in America, whom she says have seen their civil liberties under attack in the country's response to terrorism.
"For far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said. "CAIR was founded...because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
In the phone call with Dorsey, Omar pressed the Twitter CEO on why the president's tweet wasn't immediately taken down, the newspaper reported, citing someone familiar with the call.
Dorsey allegedly responded, per a Twitter source, by saving the tweet didn't violate the company's rules, which specifically target death threats, hateful speech and inciting violence. However, Dorsey did say that the company will work to do more to remove hate and harassment from the site.
WCCO has reached out to Omar's office for comment. A spokesperson said the call took place, but could not confirm anything as to the content of the conversation, noting it was a private call.