Apple has “Think Different” and Facebook has the “Hacker Way.” Now, emerging tech giant Twitter is trying out corporate creeds of its own.
“Defend and respect the user’s voice” is one of ten short phrases the company has posted on a wall of its San Francisco office. The phrases, which are also individually inscribed on company laptops, represent the company’s “core values” according to Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Macgillivray. Here’s a shot (the other slogans are blurred at Twitter’s request):
Most of the Twitter slogans are innocuous (like “Ship It”) or bland corporate statements but the vow to defend users’ voices appears to carry more significance. Twitter has already stood out among social media companies by challenging government subpoenas directed at its users. Such acts led a Wired reporter to write that Twitter “beta-tested a spine.”
Twitter is already discovering, though, that it can be easier to espouse a slogan than to live up to it. The company landed in hot water this month after it was accused of deleting the account of a journalist who had criticized a corporate partner. (Twitter apologized and restored the account).
Macgillivray, perhaps wary of Google’s PR headaches with ‘Don’t Be Evil,’ said the Twitter slogans will remain internal for now.
