Disney decided not to buy Twitter because of the “nastiness” of the platform

Disney CEO Bob Iger is telling plenty of tales worth hearing these days, all to promote his new book The Ride of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, which doesn’t have an overly long title at all and is on shelves now.

Speaking to The New York Times, Iger talked about a fascinating piece of Disney almost-history: the time the company almost bought Twitter. This news was bubbling around 2016, but Iger didn’t go through with the deal. Why not?

"The troubles were greater than I wanted to take on, greater than I thought it was responsible for us to take on. There were Disney brand issues, the whole impact of technology on society. The nastiness is extraordinary. I like looking at my Twitter newsfeed because I want to follow 15, 20 different subjects. Then you turn and look at your notifications and you’re immediately saying, why am I doing this? Why do I endure this pain? Like a lot of these platforms, they have the ability to do a lot of good in our world. They also have an ability to do a lot of bad. I didn’t want to take that on."

Basically, Iger didn’t want to touch Twitter because it was too toxic, which…yeah, I get that. To back up what he said about enduring the pain of notifications, even when he tweeted about Disney employees raising nearly 300k for Children’s LA Hospital, he still got complaints about Disney Cruise Line ships and calls for him to retire. There were plenty of civil comments, too, but doesn’t your eye always go right to the negative stuff?

Can you imagine Disney, a company known for its family-friendly image, trying to purge Twitter of vitriol and reactionary rhetoric? What would be left?

The rest of the interview is worth a look, too. Iger talks about acquiring Fox, Disney execs Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, and of course, all things Star Wars…

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h/t Deadline