Here’s an expanded excerpt of Agrawal’s answer to the question of how Twitter tries to balance principles of free speech with the need to counter misinformation: “Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” He said Twitter’s challenge is to make sure the recommendation systems it is building lead to “a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.” Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting free speech - and does not apply to private companies.) In a 2010 tweet that was recirculated Monday, Agrawal wrote, “‘If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.'” He was quoting a satirical comment by comedian Aasif Mandvi, who said it on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” in a discussion about NPR’s firing of Juan Williams over his comments on Fox News about fearing people in “Muslim garb.”Ĭonservatives also pounced on comments he made in a November 2020 interview with MIT Technology Review in which, in discussing efforts to fight misinformation, he said Twitter’s role “is not to be bound by the First Amendment.” Some conservatives believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that Twitter and other social media platforms demonstrate a bias against right-leaning figures and viewpoints. It is because they care about Twitter and our future, and it’s a signal that the work we do here matters.”Īgrawal’s appointment as CEO has already raised hackles in right-wing circles. “Lots of people are going to have lots of different opinions about today’s news. “The world is watching us right now, even more than they have before,” Agrawal, 37, wrote in his own email to employees (and posted to Twitter). As of the end of September 2021, it has more than 7,100 employees worldwide, up 33% year over year. Under Dorsey, who had been CEO since 2015, the company focused on making Twitter easier to use and more engaging, and also improving the reliability and scalability of the overall service and its advertising stack.Īgrawal noted that there were fewer than 1,000 Twitter employees when he joined the company in 2011. Those include misinformation, abuse and effects on mental health.Twitter has credited Agrawal’s engineering work on its revenue and consumer platforms with helping turn around its audience growth in 2016-17. Parag joins a growing cadre of Indian-American CEOs of large tech companies, including Sundar Pichai of Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft's Satya Nadella and IBM's Arvind Krishna.Īs CEO, Parag Agrawal have to step beyond the technical details and deal with the social and political issues Twitter and social media are struggling with. Initially, at Twitter, he worked on ad-related products, but gradually he also dabbled in artificial intelligence. In all three companies, his work was mostly research-oriented. Before that, he briefly worked at Microsoft, AT&T and Yahoo. After the news came out that he has been named as the next CEO of Twitter, Parag’s followers grew from a mere 24,000 to over 2,20,000 (at the time of writing this report). Parag keeps posting photos of his family on his Instagram account. She also writes for venture capital company Andreessen Horowitz, which describes itself as a platform that connects entrepreneurs, investors, executives, engineers, academics, industry experts, and others in the technology ecosystem.Īccording to her profile on the website, Vineeta holds a BS in biophysics from Stanford University, and MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School/MIT. A post shared by Parag Agrawal to her Twitter profile, Vineeta is a physician and works as adjunct clinical professor at Stanford School of Medicine.
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