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Not right for Twitter: Co-founder claims Elon Musk ‘unwound all positive changes’
Improvements to morale and content policies at the business have been reversed, Twitter co-founder said
Months after the controversial Twitter takeover by Elon Musk, the social media platform’s co-founder expresses that the tech billionaire might not be the best fit for the company. ‘Improvements to morale and content policies at the business have been reversed’ since the new proprietor joined the company.
Noting that Musk has literally unwound the positive changes brought in the recent year, Biz Stone told the Guardian, running social media companies is “not really a win-win situation … it’s always tough”, because “50% of the people are gonna be happy, 50% of people are gonna be upset with you”.
He added, “It doesn’t seem like it right now, but I could be wrong.”
Since the Twitter takeover, Musk has been criticised for his decisions including massive lay-offs, harsh monitisation strategies, reinstating previously banned account etc.
Hinting in particular about how content policies have changed, Stone said, “We made a lot of improvements in those areas. And that’s all gone now.”
Stone, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 with Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Evan Williams, returned to the business in 2017 at the behest of thenchief executive Dorsey to “guide the company culture, that energy, that feeling”.
However, Stone is hopeful that the concept of Twitter would survive despite its massive financial struggle. “I don’t know that Twitter as a company is going to succeed for ever but the idea of Twitter I think will be around,” said Stone, pointing to the success of alternative platforms such as Mastodon.
“It would only matter that Twitter the idea continued. And that’s happened. That seems to be happening already. Mastodon seems to be winning the open-source, decentralised version of Twitter. People seem to be going there.”
He added: “I don’t know the future. I don’t know what’s gonna happen and maybe things will be great in a year and [it] had to go through this trial by fire. But, right now it does not look good, I would say.”
He also cited that when they were starting Twitter, they never thought that it would become so successful. “I tell young people – if you’re doing something to try to get rich, it’s probably not going to work. You should do something that you’re just really enjoying working on and then you actually have a greater chance of becoming wealthy.”
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Business NewsNewsWorldNot right for Twitter: Co-founder claims Elon Musk ‘unwound all positive changes’
First Published:27 Jan 2023, 07:04 PM IST
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