Business leaders who reject woke culture to be ‘first people lined up against the wall and shot in revolution,’ former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo says

Twitter started out in 2004 after Ex-Googler Evan Williams founded a podcasting startup called Odeo. Then when Apple launched its iTunes podcasting in June 2005, the new Apple service made Odeo’s podcasting platform irrelevant. Then Jack Dorsey, an Odeo employee and an undergraduate student at New York University at the time, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.

Then in August 2006, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Jack Dorsey decided to create another platform called Twitter instead. Since then, Twitter has quickly evolved to become a lively communication platform used by millions worldwide to share their opinions, update friends, family, and colleagues about news and views.

Over the past few years, however, Twitter and the rest of other social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook have become a cesspool for hate. Twitter now has millions of hate accounts with hate tweets receiving millions of retweets. No day goes by without trending hate hashtags and harsh words. In some cases, negative, divisive, and hate-filled hashtags are constantly featured on Twitter’s trending section for the entire day.

However, what’s so troubling about Twitter is that negative tweets are not just limited to far-left or far-right users. Tech leaders are also adding gasoline to the fire by promoting violence on the platform. Yesterday, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo got into a heated debate that has consumed tech’s elite on Twitter over the past few days. Then the discussion led to the argument about whether the industry should actively promote social justice causes and encourage political conversations at work.

Costolo then made this comment: “Me-first capitalists who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution,” he tweeted. “I’ll happily provide video commentary.”

https://twitter.com/dickc/status/1311472075903647750

Costolo’s language—suggesting he’d like to see some of his peers face a firing squad—was shocking and reinforced lack of civility and the profoundly unusual and troubling circumstances that have engulfed corporate America this year. Michael Arrington, founder of the popular tech blog site TechCrunch quickly fired back saying:

“This is incitement of violence, glorifying violence and it’s the former CEO of Twitter. And, I thought, an old friend. I’m stunned.”

https://twitter.com/arrington/status/1311487325029888003

We now live in a culture where people are less tolerant of others. Technology, which is supposed to be used to make the world a better place, has now become a weapon of hate.