Why tech firms are set to face complex ethical issues

[Commentary] The idea of access is something we think a lot about at Twitter and have since the company began. The founders thought about access in terms of a group of friends being able to instantly know what the others were up to. Whether that was moving into a new apartment in San Francisco or drinking a glass of wine in Napa Valley. For them, access was defined by immediacy and personal contact with people they knew offline.

As Twitter developed and became a product of the world, access took on a more ambitious, more significant meaning. It started to represent the democratic ideal of access for all. It applied to people who didn’t necessarily know each other, who might not be in the same country, same political spectrum, or same socioeconomic condition. Thanks to the increasing pervasiveness of the internet and the growth of platforms like Twitter, access has become available at a larger scale than ever before.

It is critically important that we work to make this access reach even further - to more people in more parts of the world. Our commitment is that we as a company will continue to navigate an increasingly complicated political landscape. We will deal with issues at the intersection of ethics, content and technology that have not been confronted before. We will make difficult decisions every day to ensure that as many people as possible have access, and that the smallest voices in the world can be heard. And what we ask of you is that you use this access responsibly and with empathy. Use it to shine a light on what’s good in the world and what needs to be changed, to champion the underserved, to embrace people’s differences, and amplify the best of humanity.

[Dick Costolo is the departing CEO of Twitter]