Read Tyler Joseph's statement on his "platform tweet"

A few months ago, I tweeted out a tweet that was kind of poking fun at "using your platform", and I want to take the opportunity, the moment, to apologize and to say that I’m sorry, and that it was wrong, I shouldn’t have done it. I see now how it could have hurt some people, and it did hurt people. You can even ask my parents. Ever since I was little, it’s always been a little tough for me to admit when I’m wrong, and this is me admitting that I was wrong.

I wish I could take it back, but I can’t, and I’m truly sorry. I hope you can forgive me for it. I know some people will feel that this is not enough of an apology, and I understand that, and it’s OK. And I guess, because of some of the realness of the reaction to it—there’s a philosophy that if you don’t publicly talk about the threats and the doxing that it will maybe just go away, and if you talk about it, it might ramp up and happen more—not just threats to me, but my family—my wife and my daughter. And so what I want to do is, I want to clear something up in hopes that that happens less or at least stops happening altogether.

I know that I’m not a racist person. I know that about myself. Not just because of the words that I say, or what I say outwardly, but also because of my actions. When I just out of high school, I got a job working at a sports camp. It was an all summer long thing. I was about 20 years old, and I was a camp counselor and everyone that was a part of the camp were younger inner city kids, and it was something that I fell in love with. Yes, I got paid to do it - I mean minimum wage - but at the end of that summer, I realized I love this outreach - I love the ability to go into the inner city where kids may not have all the resources that some other kids have and providing that. And then a few years later, when our band first started making money - I think it was 2016, about five years ago - one of the first things I did was I made a non-profit. I founded it and funded it. That nonprofit is happening today. It's still going, and it's something that means a lot to me. we go into the inner city. And we hand select some kids out of schools to be a part of a camp. we do two camps a year. I want to thank Ohio state campus university for letting us use their facilities - It wouldn't be possible without that. and we introduce these kids to college coaches, college players, also life coaches, and guidance counselors, and to hopefully give them the tools, to not only excel and propel their career in sports, but even more than that.

This is something I’ve been doing for five years now since 2016, and I’ve never gone public about it. I’ve never asked for you guys to fund it. I’ve never asked to help with the with the ability of making it work financially - I’ve just kind of taken that all on myself. And I’ve never really promoted it, because that wasn't the point - the point was the outreach; the point was the impact, and that's truly all I was interested in. I want you to know that I’m an advocate for, an ally of, and a supporter of black lives in ways that you may never know.

Now listen, I’m not talking about this as an excuse for what I’ve done and what I’ve said and what I’ve tweeted. I still come back around and know I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’m sorry. I hear some people say: I’ve grown up listening to you; I’ve grown up with you guys. I’ve been in this band for over 10 years, and the truth is, I’ve grown up with you, and how can you not be a different person after 10 years? How can you not change and learn and become better? So I hope that you allow me to utilize what happened  as another way for me to learn to grow and become better.

(credits to AltPress)

Watch the video where he addressed the issue on YouTube.

Chinese version: 阅读泰勒·约瑟夫关于他 "平台 tweet "的声明。

几个月前，我发了一条 tweet，拿"利用你的平台"这句话开了玩笑，我想借着这个机会和这个时刻向大家道歉，告诉大家我很抱歉，这是不对的，我不应该这么做。我现在明白了，这条 tweet 会如何伤害到一些人，而且它确实伤害到了一些人。你甚至可以问我的父母。从小到大，我总是有些不愿意承认自己错了。而现在我要承认自己错了。

我希望我可以收回我说的话，但是我不能收回，而我真心抱歉。我希望你能原谅我。我知道有些人会觉得这样的道歉还不够，我理解，这没关系。我想，因为一些反馈让我感觉到真实——有一个理论是说，如果你不公开谈论威胁和人肉，它也许就会自己消失，如果你谈论它，它可能会加剧和更多发生——這些威脅不只是針對我，还有我的家人，我的妻子和我的女儿。所以我想做的是，我想澄清一些事情，希望这种事情少发生或者至少完全停止发生。

我知道我不是一个种族主义者。我知道关于我自己的這個事實——不仅仅是因为我说的话，或者我对外说的话，还因为我的行为。当我刚从高中毕业的时候，我找到了一份工作，在一个运动营工作。那是持续了一整个夏天的事情。我当时大约20岁，我擔任营地的辅导员，营地里的每个人都是年轻的内城孩子。我爱上了这份工作。是的，我是拿著报酬的——最低工资，但在那个夏天结束时，我意识到我爱上了外展服务——我喜爱自己能够进到内城——在这里，孩子们可能没有一些其他的孩子所拥有和被提供的资源。然后几年后，当我们的乐队第一次开始赚钱的时候--我想是在2016年，大约五年前--我做的第一件事就是我建了一个非营利组织。我成立了它，并为它提供资金。那个非营利组织今天还存在着。它仍在继续，这对我来说意义重大——我们进入内城，我们从学校里挑选出一些孩子参加夏令营；我们每年办两个夏令营。我想感谢俄亥俄州立大学校园让我们使用他们的设施——没有他們的幫助，我们就不可能做成这件事。我们把这些孩子介绍给大学教练，大学球员，还有生活教练和辅导员，希望给他们提供一些工具，不仅能在运动中取得优异成绩，推动他们的事业发展，还有更深远的目的。

这個項目从2016年开始，我已经做了5年了，我从来没有公开过这件事。我从来没有要求你们资助过它。我从来没有要求别人在财务运作上面帮助这个组织，仅仅是我在自己承担。一我从来没有真正推广过它，因为那不是重点--重点是外展服务；重点是对他们产生的影响，那才是我真正感兴趣的。我想让你们知道，我是黑人生命的倡导者、盟友和支持者，而你们根本不会知道。

听着，我并不是在为我的所作所为、所言所语、所发的 tweet 找借口。我还是回过神来，知道自己错了。我不应该这样做，我很抱歉。我听到有些人说：我是听着你们的音乐长大的；我和你们一起长大。我在这个乐队里呆了10多年。事实上，我是和你们一起长大的。10年了，你怎么能不变成一个不同的人呢？你怎么能不改变，不学习，不变得更好呢？所以我希望你允许我利用发生的事情，作为我学习成长和变得更好的另一种方式。