Twitter Co-Founder Ev Williams Says Trump a 'Master' of the Platform

In an interview, Williams said "What Trump has done with Twitter is pretty genius, frankly. He's a master of the platform like few others."

By Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: 23 May 2019 14:37 IST

Twitter Co-Founder Ev Williams Says Trump a 'Master' of the Platform

Just days after US President Donald Trump said he used Twitter as a "typewriter", the Co-founder of the micro-blogging site, Ev Williams has called Trump "master" of the platform.

In an interview, Williams said "What Trump has done with Twitter is pretty genius, frankly. He's a master of the platform like few others," CNN Business reported on Wednesday.

Trump, who is infamous for making controversial statements, war threats and spelling errors on his Twitter handle, recently admitted that the micro-blogging site to him is a "typewriter" and "a modern way to communicate" in order to get things noticed distinctly.

But Williams argued the potential negative effects of the President's tweets on the country's political discourse are "trivial compared to the effect of the broader media", the report said.

The statements come in compliance with a view popular in the Silicon Valley that believes that traditional media outlets have extensively covered the destructive effects of big tech companies while not examining their own role in creating a more polarised society.

Williams said Twitter was not as destructive of a platform as Fox News is.

"The vast majority of the electorate is not on Twitter reading Trump's tweets and being convinced by that. What they're convinced much more by is the destructive power of Fox News, which is much, much more powerful and much more destructive than Twitter," Williams was quoted as saying.

Williams co-founded Twitter in 2007 with Jack Dorsey. Later, in 2008, he became the CEO of Twitter, replacing Dorsey.

After 12 years of being associated with the company, in February 2019, Williams stepped down from Twitter's board to "focus his time on other projects".

Williams now runs online publishing platform Medium -- a site he describes as a network for longer-form, more in-depth content, the report noted.

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