FACE, MEET PALM: Twitter can’t become a town square if Elon Musk is in it.

Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino is amped up for Twitter 2.0 and the platform’s potential to finally become the ‘town square’ long ago promised by outgoing CEO Elon Musk. But that will never happen as long as Twitter resembles less of an open forum and more of a live recreation of The Lottery.

Yaccarino, who joined the social media platform last week from NBC/Universal, penned a spirited Twitter thread this week in which she briefly outlined the platform’s goals and potential. On the one hand, I applaud the effort. It’s Yacarrino’s job to set the tone and communicate Twitter’s latest aspirations.

However, her tweets came just a day after Musk once again waded into the debate around transgender issues. And those tweets came fast on the heels of so many others aimed at media, universities, and any number of Musk’s other favorite targets. It wouldn’t matter, I guess, if Musk didn’t have 143 million followers – more, by a significant margin, than any other platform member.

Yaccarino cannot move forward until she addresses Musk’s influence, claims, and penchant for flame-throwing on the platform she now runs.

If Orwell were alive today, he might have to add “Conformity is diversity” to the end of “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”