Twitter, whether you like it or hate it, this is one of the prominent place on the internet where people have different discussion about serious societal issues as well as political topics. The platform recently came under a serious cyber attack whereby some high-profile accounts were targeted with this causing a mass panic on the safety of users on the platform especially as the November general election in the US gets closer.
The company’s CEO Jack Dorsey is said to have been silent over the issue that happened and he’s been called out by both journalists and commentators to do something about it. With high profile users such as the former US President Barack Obama and probably next president Joe Biden as well as big tech CEOs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, Apple, Uber even Kanye West and his wife getting their accounts hacked out, this demands a serious look into the future of cyber usage over time.
The company was able to resolve the issue after it turned a large part of it’s service off. The company CEO eventually made a tweet stating that it was a “tough day on us at Twitter - we all feel terrible this happened.”
While the US general election looms around the corner in just a matter of months, this made people question the integrity of the platform to serve as a place to get true information and not be misled. While the hacks had been said to be about money and nothing entirely political about it, the fact that the hackers were able to hijack those accounts from Twitter’s administrators was a terrible thing.
The company had taken a lot of hits from cyber attackers in the past but in a bid to keep the platform safer, the company’s CEO had devised numerous methods such as trying to reduce political involvement with the platform. A recent rift it had with the US President was one of such.
With Twitter’s stance on political discussions, the platform had been seen as being hateful towards Conservatives by the Right spectrum while the Left sees it as a place to shine for progressivism.
Aside the external views, the company’s CEO too had been called out by an activist fund organization, Elliot Management which had a sizable stake in the company asking Jack Dorsey to either focus on the company or just step out of it.
This is to say that Jack Dorsey holds the CEO position at both Twitter and Square a payment company he also co-founded.
The Elliot Management seems to be the biggest antagonist of Jack Dorsey which eventually relaxed it’s stance on it’s attempt to get rid of the Twitter boss back in March. The recent Cyber attack didn’t get any comment from the company but the company stated that the attackers might have used Twitter employees who had access to internal tools.
The FBI is reportedly investigating the incident.
“His position has always been a little precarious. It is very hard to retain being CEO of two organizations,” said David Yoffie, a professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. “This incident is probably more damaging to his personal reputation because of his split focus.”
Dorsey has defended his double duty at Twitter and Square in the past. “I have enough flexibility in my schedule to focus on the most important things, and I have a good sense of what is critical on both companies,” he said at a Morgan Stanley event in March.
Despite the fact that Jack Dorsey seems to be loved by the members of the board, his stance could be questioned if another big profile hack ever happen again in the future according to Christine Mooney a professor at Norther Illinois University College of Business.
“It’s something the board will have to assess,” Mooney said. “Could this have been prevented if he only dedicated his time to this one major company?”
While other big tech companies including Facebook and Google are facing antitrust questioning in the Congress, Twitter will not be joining as it’s not held in the same position as its counterparts meanwhile the company might face more scrutiny if something of such ever happened again.
“If you were in his shoes,” Harvard’s Yoffie said, “you would probably be delighted to not be on the list.”
