Ex-Twitter CEO says social media platforms shouldn’t ‘treat every account equally’
Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told CNBC on Monday that the social media company should give different sharing permissions to different types of accounts as a way to improve discourse on its platform. “You have to start treating all these accounts differently,” Costolo said... “You’ve got high authority accounts, like newspaper accounts … that may be allowed to tweet things that a user that just signed up yesterday and has zero followers shouldn’t.”... Twitter has recently shown a willingness to differentiate among accounts, announcing in June a new feature that would label tweets from influential government officials who violate its content policies instead of taking the posts down.
... Twitter and other social media companies such as Facebook have faced scrutiny over the way they regulate — or fail to regulate — content. Critics argue the companies should do more to crack down on discriminatory and offensive content. Others believe the platforms should not be restrictive, and some argue they should apply the free speech standards of the First Amendment, which applies to how government entities regulate speech, not publicly traded companies.