New Twitter CEO in racism row on Day 1

WASHINGTON: Twitter’s new Indian-American CEO

Parag Agrawal

straightaway faced controversy on day one after right wing trolls and media outlets claimed to have unearthed a decade-old tweet which they said appeared to suggest he believed all white people are racist. The tweet, published on October 26, 2010, when Agrawal had not even joined Twitter, read “If they are not gonna make a distinction between Muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists?” But Agrawal himself clarified in the thread that he was only quoting the comedian Aasif Mandvi who had said something on these lines on the Daily Show.

Nevertheless, rightwing trolls, who’ve consistently accused Twitter of censoring them and see Agarwal as

Dorsey

’s legatee, worked themselves into a lather, wondering if the social media platform would get even harder on them. Many right wing followers have decamped to the platform Parler after Twitter turfed out former President Donald Trump.

However, the tech community at large marveled at Agrawal’s rise in Silicon Valley tech eco-system, where he has risen from a software engineer to

CEO

in just under 11 years. In an email he sent to his colleagues, Agrawal himself noted this while expressing gratitude to Dorsey for his guidance and counsel. “I joined this company 10 years ago when there were fewer than 1,000 employees. While it was a decade ago, those days feel like yesterday to me,” he wrote, telling Dorsey, “I’ve walked in your shoes, I’ve seen the ups and downs, the challenges and obstacles, the wins and the mistakes. But then and now, above all else, I see Twitter’s incredible impact, our continued progress and the exciting opportunities ahead of us.”