Jack Dorsey goes to Washington, talks blockchain

Twitter is interested in blockchain technology as part of efforts to solve problems faced by its users, its CEO Jack Dorsey told a US Congressional committee yesterday.

During a House Committee on Energy and Commerce hearing that focused on user privacy protections, misinformation, content moderation and alleged bias against political conservatives on Twitter, California Representative Doris Matsui asked Dorsey: “You previously expressed interest in the broad applications of blockchain technology, including potentially in an effort to verify identity to fight misinformation and scams. What potential applications do you see for blockchain?”

Dorsey replied: “We need to start with problems we’re trying to solve for our customers and look at all available technology”.

He added: “Blockchain is one that I think has a lot of untapped potential, specifically around distributed trust and distributed enforcement. We haven’t gone as deep as I would like just yet in understanding how we might apply this technology to Twitter but we have people thinking about it today.”

Here’s (some of) Dorsey’s opening statement:

“Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee today so I may speak to you and the American people.

Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. We are an American company that serves our global audience by focusing on the people who use our service, and we put them first in every step we take. Twitter is used as a global town square, where people from around the world come together in an open and free exchange of ideas. We must be a trusted and healthy place that supports free and open discussion.

Twitter has publicly committed to improving the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation on our platform. Twitter’s health is measured by how we help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. Conversely, abuse, malicious automation, and manipulation detracts from the health of our platform. We are committed to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress of our health initiative.

Today, I hope my testimony before the Committee will demonstrate the challenges that we are tackling as a global platform. Twitter is approaching these challenges with a simple question: How do we earn more trust from the people using our service? We know the way earn more trust around how we make decisions on our platform is to be as transparent as possible. We want to communicate how our platform works in a clear and straightforward way.”

Phew, it goes on a bit. If you’re that way inclined, you can read the rest of it here.