Incoming Twitter CEO Said Company Should ‘Focus Less’ on Free Speech

Twitter’s incoming CEO Parag Agrawal suggested last year that the company should “focus less” on free speech during an interview with Technology Review.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced Monday that he is stepping down as CEO and will be succeeded by Agrawal, who is the platform’s current chief technology officer.

Last year, Technology Review editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield asked Agrawal how Twitter balances its efforts to combat misinformation with wanting to “protect free speech as a core value” and to respect the First Amendment. 

“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,” said Agrawal, who has been CTO since 2017 and has worked at Twitter since 2011. “The kinds of things that we do about this is, focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”