A former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has admitted his biggest mistake.
This is coming after the microblogging site was sold to billionaire investor and businessman, Elon Musk.
Despite initially rebuffing Musk’s bid, the board of Twitter made a U-turn asking shareholders to vote to approve the deal.
Twitter’s stance changed after Musk revealed the financial details of his offer by securing $25.5 billion of financing for the deal and opted to take a $21 billion stake in the business.
Musk had in early April bought a 9.2 per cent stake in the social media company. However, many users are still yet to trust its new landlord, who hopes to “increase trust” on Twitter.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans,” Musk said after the acquisition of the social media platform.
Dorsey, in a series of cryptic tweets, tried to explain the sale of Twitter, taking a lot of responsibility for some of the recent developments.
He said, “I have tried taking a break from Twitter recently, but I must say: the company has always tried to do its best given the information it had. Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility. In the cases we were wrong or went too far, we admitted it and worked to correct.
“Some things can be fixed immediately, and others require rethinking and reimplementing the entire system. It is important to me that we get critical feedback in all of its forms, but also important that we get the space and time to address it. All of that should be done publicly.”
A transparent system, both in policy and operations, is the right way to earn trust. Whether it’s owned by a company or an open protocol doesn’t matter _as much as_ deliberately deciding to be open about every decision and why it was made. It's not easy to do, but it must happen.
— jack (@jack) April 29, 2022
Going further, he explained that the only way the microblogging platform would work is if it is based on trust, whoever ends up owning the platform. Even though he admitted it was not the easiest thing to do, the CEO of Square said his biggest “failing” was being quick, which he addressed would be fixed.
“Doing this work means you’re in the arena. Nothing that is said now matters. What matters is how the service works and acts, and how quickly it learns and improves. My biggest failing was that quickness part. I’m confident that part, at least, is being addressed, and will be fixed,” he tweeted.
Doing this work means you’re in the arena. Nothing that is said now matters. What matters is how the service works and acts, and how quickly it learns and improves. My biggest failing was that quickness part. I’m confident that part at least is being addressed, and will be fixed.
— jack (@jack) April 29, 2022
He ended his tweets by advocating that there should not be any permanent ban served on anyone, only if it is proven that it is illegal. Hence, the need for measures that will prevent excesses.
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