Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Speaks Out On Censorship And IPO
Twitter is quite the social network. 140 character blasts that has revolutionized how we communicate and how we get our news. Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter and who used to own Feedburner which was then sold to Google, talked about politics, censorship, and the inevitable IPO.
Recently, they’ve come under fire after they announced they can now censor tweets on a country-by-country basis. This upset a lot of people and the timing was bad, really bad. The news came shortly after SOPA was pulled from Congress and the vote for PIPA was delayed. Because of the censorship news, people started the #TwitterBlackout hashtag as well as others, to protest their decision and were said to boycott the site for a whole day.
This was last Saturday and it’s still unsure how many actually participated in the boycott. Anyways, Facebook is said to be filing for their IPO this week. One question that is being asked is when will Twitter IPO or will they this year?
“Costolo hinted that Twitter will also likely need to go public at some point, but said he is not worrying about that right now. Asked directly whether there is going to be an IPO for Twitter in the future, Costolo went quiet for several seconds before saying “I choose not to answer that question.”
Fair enough. In regards to censorship, Dick had this to say:
“There has been no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter,” Costolo said. He added that Twitter believes “this is the most honest, transparent, and forward-looking way for a company to deal with the myriad of complex issues around the world that you experience when you have to operate in these countries.”
“Twitter needs to have such a policy to operate in certain countries, Costolo said. The move is not an attempt, however, to expand Twitter into China, where the social media site is currently blocked.”
What are you feelings about Twitter and the ability to censor tweets if required by law?
