A Twitter engineer says he's deleting the app from his own phone in a protest of CEO Jack Dorsey's policies

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Jack Dorsey.

• A Twitter engineer has launched a scathing public attack on CEO Jack Dorsey, and said he is deleting the app, at least for 3 months. 
• Jared Gaut criticised leadership's attempts to remain neutral - an apparent reference to Twitter's decision not to ban conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
• "I believe leadership truly have their hearts in the right place and genuinely want Twitter to be a safe place, but right now leadership is failing us," Gaut wrote.
• His tweets have since been retweeted thousands of times.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is facing sharp criticism from an unlikely source - one of his own engineers.

Early on Tuesday morning, Twitter IT system engineer Jared Gaut took to the social network to voice his displeasure with recent decisions by the company leadership, and to announce he was deleting the app completely for the next three months in protest. 

"I love @twitter, the company and service, but right now we are making the wrong decisions," he wrote. "Everyone at Twitter passionately wants to make the world better. I believe leadership truly have their hearts in the right place and genuinely want Twitter to be a safe place, but right now leadership is failing us."

His thread quickly drew widespread attention, and it has now been retweeted almost 3,500 times, and been liked over 10,000 times.

Gaut's criticism appears to be a rebuttal to Dorsey's decision to allow conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to remain on Twitter - even as other tech companies, from YouTube to Facebook, booted him from their platforms in the face of sustained public criticism over the spread of misinformation on their platforms. 

Dorsey has insisted that Jones has not violated Twitter's rules (a claim that an investigation from CNN has contested), arguing that Twitter has a duty to remain impartial and should not "react to outside pressure." 

It is this pro-neutrality line of argument that Gaut appears to have taken issue with, and suggests it may be backfiring. "We are not a government. We do not need to be neutral. The feeling that we are making the tough, right call by remaining neutral is wrong. Our inaction is suppressing voices - disabling conversation."

He added: "We may come around and make the right decision this time, but how long until we are right here again? We are stuck in an infinite loop."

As such, Gaut said, he is deleting the app for the rest of the third quarter of 2018, and "signing out of all browsers." His Twitter bio now says he is "on a twitter break."

It's not clear what Twitter's response to the engineer's actions is, or whether he will be reprimanded for speaking out. A spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Here's Jared Gaut's full thread: