Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter, says a segment of the media — and not just Twitter — is responsible for helping Donald Trump win the election
"The much bigger issue is not Donald Trump using Twitter, that got him elected — even if he says so," Williams said in an interview with the BBC's Radio 4.
"It's the quality of the information we consume that is reinforcing dangerous beliefs and isolating people and limiting people's open-mindedness in respect for truth.
"And there's a media ecosystem that is supported and thrives on attention period. And that is what's making us all dumber, not smarter and Donald Trump is a symptom of that, but it's not his using Twitter and I don't think Twitter is at all the worst case of this.
"It's the ad-driven media that churns stuff out on a minute-by-minute basis and their only measure is whether or not someone clicks on it … because that's the only way they can make money. And therefore, quoting Trump's tweets or quoting the latest, stupidest thing that any political candidate or anyone else says is an effective way to exploit people's base instincts and that is dumbing the entire world down."
Trump has used Twitter to address the public for years, Fortune magazine noted.
But in a New York Times interview earlier this year, Williams said this about Trump's belief that Twitter put him in the White House: “It’s a very bad thing, Twitter’s role in that,” he said. “If it’s true, that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry.”
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