New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is under fire for an old tweet after just less than 2 days on the job

Just yesterday we wrote about Twitter founder Jack Dorsey after a surprise announcement that he was stepping from his role as chief executive officer of Twitter. Immediately after his departure, Jack was replaced by CTO Parag Agrawal.

Now with less than two days after the Indian-born Agrawal became CEO of Twitter following the resignation of Jack Dorsey, an 11-year-old Tweet from Agrawal is coming back to haunt him. On October 26, 2020, Agrawal shared the following tweet with quotes:

“If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.”

"If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists."

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) October 26, 2010

The quote shared by Agrawal was actually said by comedian Aasif Mandvi who was part of a panel on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on October 26, 2010, discussing NPR’s then-recent firing of Juan Williams, according to Mashable.

According to another report from The Wrap, the panel members were responding to a comment made by Juan Williams on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor in which he said he gets “nervous” when someone identifies themselves as a Muslim on a plane.

Parag is known for tweeting sensitive quotes of famous people. For example, on April 6, 2010, Parag tweeted a quote from Bill Maher that reads:

“The true Axis of Evil in America is the genius of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people – Bill Maher. #quote”

The true Axis of Evil in America is the genius of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people – Bill Maher. #quote

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 6, 2010

That’s not all. Some people are now saying censorship will get worse under Agrawal’s leadership given his previous tweets on freedom and First Amendment. In November 2020, Agrawal said the following in an interview:

“Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment…focus[ing] less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.”

Meanwhile, “The nearly 10-minute segment on NPR’s firing of Juan Williams, ‘NPR Staffing Decision 2010,’ is still available to stream on Comedy Central’s website. We will share it with you when we find it.