Parag Agrawal, the new CEO of Twitter who took over for Jack Dorsey Monday morning, is facing backlash after a tweet from 2010 resurfaced.
Within minutes of his promotion, Twitter users trawled through Agrawal’s old tweets, a familiar process that has spelled professional disaster for many before. Although most of the tweets were banal, some users seized on a tweet from Oct. 26, 2010, which said, “If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.”
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“If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists.”
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) October 26, 2010
A screenshot of a subsequent tweet suggests Agrawal was quoting Asif Mandvi from The Daily Show.
The unearthed tweet sparked outrage from critics, who called the statement racist and a bad omen for Agrawal’s approach to free speech on the platform.
This is Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s new CEO and the person who’s going to be deciding what kind of speech is allowed on Twitter: https://t.co/W4HYeNSxlf
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) November 29, 2021
New ceo of the bird app is an unabashed racist ?♂️ https://t.co/67Jcj7bzq0
— Matthew Tyrmand (@MatthewTyrmand) November 29, 2021
Twitter is about to get worse.
The new Twitter CEO is a proud racist. https://t.co/XR8RYMpDaz
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) November 29, 2021
Some defended Agrawal, saying that he was quoting a joke.
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This tweet which is currently going viral among the right from Twitter’s new CEO is him quoting a Daily Show segment that aired that night about stereotypes.
It’s a joke about absurd stereotypes, not a factual statement. https://t.co/hhIdXTSiOHhttps://t.co/9bFtGrfExW
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 29, 2021
Agrawal has not yet addressed the controversy.
