Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino echoes Musk in focus on freedom of speech

In her first tweet thread since becoming CEO of Twitter last week, Linda Yaccarino on Monday emphasized the company’s focus on free speech, a topic favored by owner Elon Musk.

“Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication,” Yaccarino wrote on Twitter and in a memo to employees. “That’s not an empty promise.”

To “drive civilization forward,” Yaccarino wrote, people need access to an “unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.” Prior to Twitter, Yaccarino was global advertising chief at NBCUniversal, CNBC’s parent company.

Since purchasing Twitter for $44 billion late last year and subsequently watching the value of the site plummet due to a shifting market and decline in advertising, Musk has reinstated many accounts that had previously been shut for violating rules of prior leadership. But Musk has also silenced some voices, including suspending the accounts of journalists who have been critical of him.

Yaccarino didn’t address any specific issues or accounts, nor did she bring up any of the various problems that have afflicted the site since Musk took over. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center, for example, showed Twitter power users are posting less frequently than in the past, underscoring the difficulty Yaccarino faces in rebuilding engagement on the site.

One of Yaccarino’s most immediate challenges is to stabilize the ad business. Numerous companies have paused their ad campaigns on Twitter over concerns about the rise of hate speech and offensive content. In early June, several high-level Twitter executives tasked with brand safety suddenly left the company.

“We have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world,” Yaccarino wrote. “From what I can tell so far, we’re built for this.”

Here’s the full memo Yaccarino sent to employees:

Hello Twitter!
People keep asking me: Why Twitter? So, I’ll tell you.
From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it. More recently it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation — to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.
Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, You’re brilliant — everybody should get the chance to hear this. Or, I’m learning so much from you — can we do this again? Or maybe it’s as simple as, You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should.
Enter Twitter 2.0.
Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. We’re on the precipice of making history — and that’s not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.
When you start by wrapping your arms around this powerful vision, literally everything is possible. You have to genuinely believe — and work hard for that belief. And in this moment of complete reinvention, we have the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world. And from what I can tell so far, you’re built for this.
The success of Twitter 2.0 is all of our responsibility.
We need to think big.
We need to transform.
We need to do it all together.
And we can do it all by starting from first principles — questioning our assumptions and building something new from the ground up. It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet.
That’s exactly why I’m here — with all of YOU.
So, let’s dig our heels in (4 inches or flat!) and build Twitter 2.0 together.
Linda

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