The TwitterFiles have been a hot topic of discussion in the recent few days. Former Twitter CEO, in a recent statement, shared his opinion and some ideas for resolving the problems mentioned in the files. The former CEO, Jack, started with the concepts he came to hold based on what he’d learned and encountered through his previous work as a co-founder and leader of Twitter.
According to him, social media must resist governmental and corporate domination. He believes the only person who is supposed to delete content is its creator and not any second body. Algorithmic selection is the best way to apply moderation. However, Jack does not believe Twitter today adheres to any of these values, nor did it when he was its leader.
Jack, in line with this, blames himself because once an activist entered their stock in 2020, he stopped advocating for them. He now claims to have lost all chance of attaining any of it since he was a public corporation without any protection (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). Upon realizing he was no longer the perfect fit for the firm, Jack began to prepare for his escape.
Where did Jack go wrong?
Jack’s most significant error was continuing to put money into developing tools that would allow them to easily control the public discourse rather than developing systems that would enable those who use Twitter to do the same. This overloaded the firm with power and exposed them to a lot of external pressure (such as advertising budgets). Businesses have grown to be far too powerful, and their decision to suspend Trump’s account made this point quite evident to him. However, he re-affirms that they made the right decision for the public firm business at the time, but the incorrect decision for society and the internet.
The former Twitter CEO still maintains that everyone behaved following the most excellent knowledge they had at the time and that there were no ulterior motives or secret objectives. Naturally, errors were made and Jack regrets that if they had prioritized tools for the service users rather than tools for us and proceeded much more quickly toward complete transparency, they probably wouldn’t need a new start (which I am supportive of).
Now that Elon is tackling these issues, what impact is expected on crypto?
It’s still being determined what will happen to these initiatives under Musk’s leadership, given recent Twitter’s cryptocurrency forays. Musk is infamously fickle regarding cryptocurrencies and may purge the platform’s digital-asset team when other high-profile employees go. The Tesla Inc. CEO, who is known as “the Dogefather” for his extensive Twitter promotion of Dogecoin, referred to the cryptocurrency as “a hustle” in May 2021 while hosting “Saturday Night Live.” In 2021, he also provided the option to purchase Bitcoin for Tesla electric cars, but he discontinued the program less than two months later because of the cryptocurrency’s adverse environmental effects. Given Elon’s bullish nature on crypto, this could proof a significant booster to the ecosystem’s growth.