eet ets w ate It's interesting, though not surprising, that every time I do press interviews these days, I'm being set up to bag on ‘Twitter and social media generally. I wasintr'd on CNBC yesterday with something along the lines of afters long history incon Valley, Ev Wiliams has come to a conclusion: SOCIAL MEDIA IS “TOXIC.” Um..WTF, Fm not sure in what (any) contest I sid toi, butt was almost certainly with ‘qualifiers (lke “ean be’). The interviewer, ee_bos, was not he one who said it and gave me. chance to address thet intro, But of couse I had about 1 sosonds and nuances hard. {il strongly believe open platforms ike Twitter are important for society. “And” it {s almost impossible to capture the good without geting some bad. "And? there is ‘much that should (and wil) be done to make these pices thie plee) more civil “And, ys, we (Tite) should have invested more heavily in abuse before. 1 hink ‘we did more in the early days than we often get ered for (and they are doing way more today. "And? I personaly underestimated the loming problem during my ref tenure a8 CEO, Haid Teen more aware of how people not ike me were being treated and/or had 1 ‘nada more diverse leadership tam or board, we may have made ita priority ean’ sy for sue, Beause the problem was small hen and frankly we were under ‘water just trying to make the damn thing work, Anyway, Lam confident there are things that can be done. also don't know exactly ‘what those things are. top asking me!:) 1 come up with a riiant idea, et the company know. 1s cortainly nota easy as many commentators seem to think ‘want to retain many ofthe benefits least ntifyou Fm sue there are many good ideas out there—both within platform companies and ‘outside. We had a principle inthe early days of Twitter that iz and Talways shaved with new employees There are more smart poople outside the company than inside, ‘We always wanted to remain openminded and find god ideas where we could From what I know ofthe people at Twitter today, they ave this same attitude. If you have constructive ideas, be interested in sesing them. (Publish them on ‘Medium—or tart company’) Jost know tha without the data an information the smart people working on this problem everyday have its hard to know. And mos theories dont work in practice. "That sai, they “are* making progress Lastly, as think abou iting the send button on this thread, Pm aware of an irony, ‘which is that coming afin defense of or excusing Twiter around abuse sues is ‘ely tobe met with vitiol.o Twit. {probably won't read the replies soit doesnt matter that much. But TU know they're there "had dinner the other night wth famous person who does (or di) read their‘replies and who was quite upset tthe abuse hed seen elt form. We've enabled people tobe nasty in anew and visible way that didnt exist before Perhaps just as many people he thse terbl views before bu they stayed inside ‘thelr heads oe within thle family (to infet the nest generation of bigots) Pechaps ‘thooe views are being exacerbated or even created by acess to other asshole via the Perhaps they dont even have those views andar just trying tobe "seen® by someone anywhere because they did't et enough validation as children. don't know. Weall have our dysfunctions. ‘Whatever the case, no one woud argue tha this particular aspect of this system is a oree for good, Frankly Izarely tweet anything oter than a link, beeauseI don't enjoy debating ‘with strangers ina publi setting. Even polite nes. Lean think of fewer activities ‘that areas time-consuming *and® frustrating. Perhaps golf But atleast then you get ‘That's just me. read Twitter alot have to put that caveat in there, so there's not a “twitter cofounder doesnt use Twitter anymore” story), But always preferred to think ofits an information network, rather than a social network. realize of course that it i oth ‘And thats both the beauty and the problem. People. Like this thread? Get email updates or save itto PDF! = et rea-tie emai lets when new “witer may remove this content at anytime, comer, ‘Tryunrolling a thread yourself! 1) Follow Thess Resse App on Titer 3 you am 2). Got a Tier trend series of Tweets by the same ‘ne and metion us with a keyword “ual exrreareaerapp warolt age! 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