Yaccarino Lays Out Vision For Twitter 2.0 As ‘Global Town Square’

Former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino has laid out her vision for “Twitter 2.0″ for the first time as chief executive of the social media platform under owner Elon Musk, echoing his vision of the service as a “global town square”.

She said the service needed to “transform” in order to “drive civilisation forward”.

Yaccarino also followed Musk’s emphasis on an “unfiltered exchange of information”.

Since Musk bought the firm last October for $44 billion (£35bn) it has been criticised for loosening moderation, with most of its content moderation team reportedly having quit or been laid off along with about 75 percent of the company’s worldwide staff.

‘Global town square’

Over the past month the company has lost its head of trust and safety and pulled out of the EU’s disinformation code of practice.

Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist”.

In a series of Twitter posts that was also emailed to Twitter staff, Yaccarino wrote: “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 civilisation forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.”

‘Think big’

She added that she wants to turn Twitter into “the world’s most accurate real-time information source”.

Amidst the challenges facing the company, Yaccarino urged staff to “think big” and “transform”.

Yaccarino was formerly head of advertising sales for NBCUniversal and was credited with steering the media giant through turmoil caused by changing technology, having been behind the 2020 launch of its ad-supported streaming platform Peacock.

At Twitter she is to oversee business operations, with Musk remaining as executive chairman and chief technology officer.