OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Elon Musk is set to clean house at Twitter. But the tech titan’s ‘bloodbath’ at the social media powerhouse won’t be as extreme as once predicted or as extensive as conservatives had hoped.
According to Bloomberg News, Musk won’t be ridding the platform of 75% of its employees, it will only be about half:
Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter Inc., or half of the social media company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Twitter’s new owner aims to inform affected staffers Friday, said the people, who requested anonymity discussing non-public plans. Musk also intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices — though some exceptions could be made, the people said.
As reported at the Washington Post, when Elon Musk took control, he immediately fired Twitter’s CEO, the CFO, and the head of legal policy, trust, and safety.
“As one of his first moves, he fired several top Twitter executives, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters,” the Post reported. “One of those confirmed the deal had closed.”
“CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety, were all fired, according to the people. Sean Edgett, the company’s general counsel, was also pushed out, one of the people said,” the report added.
As earlier reported at the Washington Post, Musk planned to purge 75% of Twitter’s workforce, or around 5,600 employees.
Another move by Elon Musk has touched off hysteria is his reported suspension of shadowbans, suspensions and permanent bans in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections.
As covered by Explain America’s Carmine Sabia, the new Twitter CEO has blocked many of his Twitter staff from accessing content moderation tools used to suspend and ban accounts, as Time Magazine reported.
Most people who work in Twitter’s Trust and Safety organization are currently unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech, except for the most high-impact violations that would involve real-world harm, according to people familiar with the matter. Those posts were prioritized for manual enforcement, they said.
People who were on call to enforce Twitter’s policies during Brazil’s presidential election did get access to the internal tools on Sunday, but in a limited capacity, according to two of the people. The company is still utilizing automated enforcement technology, and third-party contractors, according to one person, though the highest-profile violations are typically reviewed by Twitter employees.
Twitter staff use dashboards, known as agent tools, to carry out actions like banning or suspending an account that is deemed to have breached policy. Detection of policy breaches can either be flagged by other Twitter users or detected automatically, but taking action on them requires human input and access to the dashboard tools. Those tools have been suspended since last week, the people said.
This prompted a mass freakout on the political left.
Sooooo…. The conspiracy theory looks like "Elon bought Twitter to deactivate content moderation before midterms"?
— Nick Lange (@Nick_Lange_) November 1, 2022
“Sooooo…. The conspiracy theory looks like “Elon bought Twitter to deactivate content moderation before midterms”? Nick Lange tweeted.
Elon Musk took down any moderation and allowed MAGA to flood back into Twitter to spread their lies a week before the midterm election day. Let that sink in.
— Arcade (@arcades_revenge) November 2, 2022
“Elon Musk took down any moderation and allowed MAGA to flood back into Twitter to spread their lies a week before the midterm election day. Let that sink in,” another user complained.
Twitter limits employee access to content-moderation tools as midterm election nears
In less than a week Musk is already destroying credibility of Twitter — didn't we learn anything from 2016 election & all those fake, pro-Trump Russian accounts?https://t.co/V4bZKQ4tjA
— Peter Grinspoon, M.D. (@Peter_Grinspoon) November 1, 2022
“Twitter limits employee access to content-moderation tools as midterm election nears,” another lamented. “In less than a week Musk is already destroying credibility of Twitter — didn’t we learn anything from 2016 election & all those fake, pro-Trump Russian accounts?”
So @Twitter has reportedly limited employee access to content moderation tools used to enforce its misinformation + civic integrity policies.
There are 7 days left until the U.S. midterm elections. This does NOT seem good.https://t.co/pCPv5qCNv9
— John Voelcker (@johnvoelcker) November 1, 2022
“So @Twitter has reportedly limited employee access to content moderation tools used to enforce its misinformation + civic integrity policies. There are 7 days left until the U.S. midterm elections. This does NOT seem good,” one Twitter user said.
The midterm elections will be a major test not only for our democratic institutions, but for Twitter itself. If the election goes smoothly and the Republicans take back the House and Senate, it will be interesting to see if the Democrats accept the results as legitimate.
