The Verge got their hands on an internal memo in which Twitter CEO Dick Costolo owns up to his company’s very bad track record in handling Twitter trolls and online abuse. Among other things, the memo detailed Costolo’s embarrassment about his organization’s failure to address Twitter’s seedier side.
We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day …I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.
Costolo’s acknowledgment is encouraging but, of course, talk is cheap. It remains to be seen just how Twitter plans on addressing the actual issues …
