President Donald Trump uses Twitter to bully, mislead, and incite. Many believe that Twitter is wrong not to ban Trump because Trump constantly violates the site’s terms of use.
But Ev Williams, who co-founded Twitter, today said in an interview he believes Fox News is “much, much more powerful and much more destructive than Twitter.”
Trump is a “master” of Twitter, Ev Williams told a CNN reporter today.
“What Trump has done with Twitter is pretty genius, frankly,” Williams said in an interview with CNN Business at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on Tuesday. “He’s a master of the platform like few others.”
“The vast majority of the electorate is not on Twitter reading Trump’s tweets and being convinced by that,” said Williams. “What they’re convinced much more by is the destructive power of Fox News, which is much, much more powerful and much more destructive than Twitter.”
A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
It’s a view some others in Silicon Valley share: they believe traditional media outlets have devoted extensive coverage to the destructive effects of big tech companies while not examining their own role in creating a more polarized society.
“Why the media’s not critiquing itself I think is kind of obvious, and it’s very easy to blame the tech platforms,” Williams told CNN Business. “But it’s an ecosystem and the traditional media companies that have benefited financially from Trump very much outweigh the tech companies.”
He also said Twitter should have invested more money and resources into fighting abuse on its platform while he served as CEO but said he didn’t believe there were any “silver bullets.”
As for whether the president’s daily tweets were good for Twitter’s business, Williams — who still owns shares in Twitter — said it’s “hard to say.”
“The fact that the president is on there and causing a lot of noise, it certainly directs more attention,” he said. “But it doesn’t necessarily direct more users or … more money.”
Twitter co-founder calls President Trump ‘master of the platform’
[via Donie O’Sullivan and Oliver Darcy]