Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has attempted to allay concerns over the longer term of the corporate’s employees after an internal townhall meeting was held with them amid concerns over an anticipated mass exodus following Elon Musk’s $44bn deal to purchase the platform.
Mr Dorsey, in a series of tweets after the townhall on Friday, wrote that Twitter “has at all times tried to do its best given the data it has” as anger and concern grows amongst employees over the uncertainty of the impact of the deal on staff retention.
Mr Dorsey said it was necessary to get critical feedback in all its forms but stressed “time and space” was needed to handle such issues.
“I even have tried taking a break from Twitter recently, but I need to say: the corporate has at all times tried to do its best given the data it had,” he said.
“Every decision we made was ultimately my responsibility*. Within the cases we were fallacious or went too far, we admitted it and worked to correct,” he explained.
Mr Dorsey, nonetheless, added a rider to his statement, saying it was “crazy and fallacious” that individuals and firms bore this responsibility.
The series of tweets come after Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal held the interior townhall to handle worker concerns prompted by Tesla chief Mr Musk’s takeover.
A source told Reuters Mr Musk wouldn’t make any decisions on job cuts till he assumed ownership of Twitter.
Mr Musk also pitched his lenders on slashing board and executive salaries, Reuters reported.
Mr Dorsey, who didn’t explicitly address the explanation for his tweets, said transparency “each in policy and operations” was the precise strategy to earn trust.
“Whether it’s owned by an organization or an open protocol doesn’t matter _as much as_ [sic] deliberately deciding to be open about every decision and why it was made. It’s hard to do, nevertheless it must occur,” he said.
“Doing this work means you’re in the sector. Nothing that is claimed now matters. What matters is how the service works and acts, and the way quickly it learns and improves,” he added, in his apparent bid to allay worker concerns.
He said his biggest failing was “that quickness part” but stated that he was confident that part is being addressed and will likely be fixed.
Mr Dorsey said in one other tweet, without naming anyone, that he didn’t consider everlasting bans on any person or organisation are correct.
“As I’ve said before, I don’t consider any everlasting ban (excluding criminality) is true, or ought to be possible. Because of this we’d like a protocol that’s resilient to the layers above,” he said.
The platform had permanently banned former president Donald Trump two days after his supporters stormed into Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021.
It also temporarily banned the handle of The Recent York Post newspaper after it published an article related to US president Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop.
Mr Dorsey, who founded Twitter in 2006, welcomed Mr Musk’s takeover of his company after the announcement but has identified that he doesn’t consider anyone should own or run Twitter.
Questions have been raised about online safety on Twitter going forward, given Mr Musk’s belief in absolute free speech.
Critics of the takeover have said the billionaire’s stance as a “free speech absolutist” could mean Twitter’s content moderation rules may very well be loosened and more controversial content can be allowed on the positioning.
