EvVerified account

And that is both the beauty and the problem. People.

That’s just me. I read Twitter a lot (have to put that caveat in there, so there’s not a “Twitter cofounder doesn’t use Twitter anymore” story). But I always preferred to think of it as an information network, rather than a social network. I realize of course that it is both.

Frankly, I rarely tweet anything other than a link, because I don’t enjoy debating with strangers in a public setting. Even polite ones. I can think of fewer activities that are as time-consuming *and* frustrating. Perhaps golf. But at least then you get nature.

Whatever the case, no one would argue that this particular aspect of this system is a force for good.

Perhaps they don’t even have those views and are just trying to be *seen* by someone anywhere because they didn’t get enough validation as children. I don’t know. We all have our dysfunctions.

Perhaps just as many people had those terrible views before but they stayed inside their heads or within their family (to infect the next generation of bigots). Perhaps those views are being exacerbated or even created by access to other assholes via the internet.

I had dinner the other night with a famous person who does (or did) read their replies and who was quite upset at the abuse he’d seen. I felt for him. We’ve enabled people to be nasty in a new and visible way that didn’t exist before.

I probably won’t read the replies so it doesn’t matter that much. But I’ll know they’re there.

Lastly, as I think about hitting the send button on this thread, I’m aware of an irony, which is that coming off in defense of or excusing Twitter around abuse issues is likely to be met with vitriol...on Twitter.

Just know that without the data and information the smart people working on this problem every day have, it’s hard to know. And most theories don’t work in practice. That said, they *are* making progress.

We always wanted to remain openminded and find good ideas where we could. From what I know of the people at Twitter today, they have this same attitude. If you have constructive ideas, I’d be interested in seeing them. (Publish them on Medium—or start a company!)

I’m sure there are many good ideas out there—both within platform companies and outside. We had a principle in the early days of Twitter that @biz and I always shared with new employees: There are more smart people outside the company than inside.

It’s certainly not as easy as many commentators seem to think—at least not if you want to retain many of the benefits.

Anyway, I am confident there are things that can be done. I also don’t know exactly what those things are. Stop asking me! :) If I come up with a brilliant idea, I’ll let the company know.

I can’t say for sure, because the problem was small then and frankly we were under water just trying to make the damn thing work.

Had I been more aware of how people not like me were being treated and/or had I had a more diverse leadership team or board, we may have made it a priority sooner.

*And*, yes, we (Twitter) should have invested more heavily in abuse before. I think we did more in the early days than we often get credit for (and they are doing way more today). *And* I personally underestimated the looming problem during my brief tenure as CEO.

I still strongly believe open platforms like Twitter are important for society. *And* it is almost impossible to capture the good without getting some bad. *And* there is much that should (and will) be done to make these places (this place) more civil.

I’m not sure in what (if any) context I said toxic, but it was almost certainly with qualifiers (like “can be”). The interviewer, @dee_bosa, was not the one who said it and gave me a chance to address that intro. But of course I had about 10 seconds and nuance is hard.