One of Twitter's founders has apologised for giving US President Donald Trump the online platform that helped get him to the White House.

With Trump telling Fox News in March that "I think I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Twitter", Evan Williams has admitted that there could be some truth in the claim and expressed his regret for it.

In an interview with The New York Times, Williams said:

"It's a very bad thing, Twitter's role in that. If it's true that he wouldn't be president if it weren't for Twitter, then yeah, I'm sorry."

Former Twitter CEO Evan Williams speaks at the company's San Francisco headquarters in September 2010. Picture by: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/Press Association Images

Williams, who was previously Twitter's CEO before stepping down in 2010, also expressed his concern for the online realm in general.

"I think the internet is broken," the Blogger and Medium co-founder opined. "And it's a lot more obvious to a lot of people that it's broken... 

"I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place. I was wrong about that."

Williams continued:

"The problem is that not everyone is going to be cool, because humans are humans.

"There’s a lock on our office door and our homes at night. The internet was started without the expectation that we’d have to do that online."

Trump, who has over 30 million Twitter followers on his @realDonaldTrump personal account, said in March:

"The news is not honest. Much of the news. And when I have close to 100 million people watching me on Twitter, including Facebook, including all of the Instagram, including POTUS, including lots of things – but we have – I guess pretty close to 100 million people. I have my own form of media."