Twitter founder Jack Dorsey wants you to know that he too misses the early days of the internet, when protocols like IRC made the web seem like a place of limitless possibilities. He also knows that he is partly responsible for the current situation.
“The days of Usenet, IRC, the Web…even email (with PGP)…were amazing,” Dorsey called in a tweet spotted by Mashable on Saturday. “Enterprise centralization of discovery and identity has really hurt the internet. I realize that it is partly my fault and I regret it.”
Dorsey’s tweet is a remarkable admission from a tech executive who made billions by creating a platform that centralizes the way we consume news. Twitter may not be as big as Facebook and TikTok, but the impact it has had on the information economy is undeniable. Many of us turn to Twitter when we want to follow ongoing events in as real time as possible, but sometimes the company struggles to combat misinformation, much to the detriment of our public institutions.
This isn’t the first time Dorsey has lamented the current state of the internet. In December, he ranted about how Web3 had already been co-opted by investors. “They don’t own ‘Web3,'” he said at the time. “The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives.”
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independently of our parent company. Some of our stories contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may receive an affiliate commission.