Twitter’s co-founder, Biz Stone: “We serve the public conversation”

This article was written by Catherine Clements. She is an assistant account executive for Havas PR. She was part of the social media and community team for #OYW2018.

TIME Magazine’s Naina Bajekal sat down with Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone to talk about the future and power of social media. Here are highlights from 3 key questions Naina asked.

Q1: How Twitter’s mission has evolved over time?

“When Twitter started out in 2006, we never had a formal mission. A mission statement would be good to unify the team. However, a mission is something that is completed or failed. So I decided that we would have a purpose statement instead, which is ‘we serve the public conversation.’ If we serve the public conversation, by extension we are responsible for the health of the conversation.”

“Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. But I don't think to have your speech amplified by Twitter is a basic human right. You have to earn that.”

Q2: How can tech help overcome societal obstacles?

“There are two things I think technology can help solve. Climate change and disruption of the workforce with artificial intelligence (AI). We need to look at how we can use AI to amplify existing human traits.

Q3: Tell us about the future trajectory of Twitter

“The company takes on the personas of the founders and the service itself takes on the persona of the people who are working in the organisation. The more diverse an organisation, the more diverse the information we provide to users. The more offerings of content we have enable users to make more informed choices”