Report: Musk fires Twitter curation team tackling misinformation
There are still unverified speculations that Elon Musk has fired Twitter’s curation team, which is responsible for countering misinformation posted on the social media network.
The claim comes (on Twitter, naturally) from Richie Assaly, a digital producer at the Toronto Star, who says he previously worked as a member of the editorial team.
Assaly says that “team leaders, management and commissioners are announcing that they have been fired.”
The move, if true, “will make Twitter noisier, more dangerous and less interesting,” he says.
Looks like Elon Musk fired the entire curation team.
These were the people who tackled misinformation, contextualized conversations through the Explore page, and helped make Twitter an unrivaled source of breaking news.
This will make Twitter noisier, more dangerous, and less interesting
— Richie Assaly (@rdassaly) November 4, 2022
Musk, in his tweet blaming “activist groups” for pressuring advertisers to pull out of Twitter, causing a “massive” drop in revenue, insisted: “nothing has changed with content moderation.”
Updated at 16.40 GMT
Key events
BETA filters
Key events (26)Twitter (27)Elon Musk (21)UK (17)USA (15)Bank of England (7)
Eddie Perez, a former manager of Twitter’s civic integrity team who resigned in September, told the Associated Press that he fears mass layoffs so close to the midterms could allow misinformation to ” spread like wildfire”, especially in the post-election period, when voting takes place. still counting:
“I find it hard to believe that it doesn’t have a material impact on their ability to handle the amount of misinformation out there,” he said, adding that there simply may not be enough employees to retrieve it.
Pérez now serves on the board of a non-profit electoral integrity organization, the OSET Institute. He warned that “some candidates may not budge and some may allege electoral irregularities and this is likely to generate a new cycle of falsehoods.”
This is an implementation point.
Twitter’s “curation” team includes many former journalists, and the team made a big impact in elevating credible and authoritative content from responsible news sources, to pre-empt and debunk misinformation.
Firing them before an election is nonsense, nonsense. https://t.co/Xfhi09L9Ij
— Edward Perez (@eddie1perez) November 4, 2022
Updated at 20.58 GMT
Elon Musk has responded to a tweet criticizing the platform’s advertising system, saying he “agrees” that “Twitter has the worst advertising platform of any social media company.”
The tweet I was replying to said that Twitter’s “AD roi” is so terrible it’s practically a black hole.”
Musk, who is overseeing mass layoffs today, said he is “working on it.”
CNN has some details from Elon Musk’s appearance at an investment conference in New York on Friday morning, in which he largely ignored the furor on Twitter and talked warmly about electric cars and spaceships.
In what the network says was “a friendly interview” with financier Ron Baron, a prominent shareholder in Musk’s electric car company Tesla, the billionaire talked about his ambition to lower the cost of his vehicles and reach Mars one day through his company SpaceX. .
Elon Musk speaks at the Baron investment conference in Manhattan on Friday. Photograph: Johnny Wolf Studio/AP
In brief comments about his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, Musk said, “I tried to get out of the deal,” then added, “I think there’s tremendous potential … and I think it could be one of the most valuable companies in the world”.
Baron, according to CNN, said Musk had fired “half of Twitter,” and Musk nodded, though he did not comment on the comment. It appeared to frame the layoffs as necessary for a company that, like other social media companies, was experiencing “revenue challenges” before its acquisition as advertisers reframed spending amid recession fears.
Musk acknowledged that “some major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter” in the week since he acquired the company, but did not expand on his tweet from today, blaming “activist groups” for favoring ad revenue .
Labor lawyer: Musk at risk of discrimination claims
The speed of the layoffs could expose Elon Musk and Twitter to discrimination claims if it turns out they disproportionately affected women, people of color or older workers, a labor attorney told the Associated Press.
Attorney Peter Rahbar, founder of the New York law firm Rahbar Group, told the agency that most employers “are very careful about making layoffs of this magnitude.”
He said: “First, they want to make sure there’s a justification, and second, that a non-discriminatory process is used. And third, they want to do everything they can to not attract attention, because these reasons
“For some reason, [Musk] he wants to fire half the company without doing any diligence on what these people do or who they are and without any respect for the law”.
Twitter is already facing a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday in San Francisco by former employees who say they were denied the required notice period that they were about to lose their jobs.
Summary
It is past 3 pm in New York (where Elon Musk has spent most of the day) and it is time to take stock of what has happened:
-
Thousands of former Twitter employees have learned they are being laid off as billionaire owner Elon Musk continues the transformation of his newly purchased social media titan.
-
Musk posted a tweet blaming “activist groups” for pressuring advertisers to pull off Twitter, causing a “massive drop in revenue.” The company added, then removed, a note to the post adding “context,” suggesting that advertisers were concerned about the platform’s direction.
-
Dozens of former employees (known as Tweeps), from many areas of the company, posted farewell messages, trending the hashtags #LoveWhereYouWorked and #OneTeam.
-
Reports suggest that Musk has eliminated entire departments from Twitter, including the curation team that moderates misinformation; a human rights team; and another responsible for machine language ethics, transparency and accountability.
-
Twitter is facing a class-action lawsuit from former employees who say they were not given enough notice under US federal law that they had lost their jobs, discovering they had been let go when they were blocked by your work accounts.
Please stay tuned, there is much more Twitter news to come.
Updated at 19.14 GMT
Here are some more tweets from former Twitter employees who now know their fate.
The first, from lawyer Shannon Raj Singh, claims the company’s entire human rights team has been fired. Twitter has yet to confirm this.
Yesterday was my last day on Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been removed from the company.
I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to protect people at risk in global conflicts and crises, including Ethiopia,
— Shannon Raj Singh (@ShannonRSingh) November 4, 2022
This one, from Joan Deitchman, a former senior engineer, suggests that Twitter’s Machine Language (ML) Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team has had a similar fate:
Others paint a picture of widespread departures, with large numbers of people from many areas of the Twitter empire now looking for new beginnings.
The hashtags #lovewhereyouworked and #oneteam are trending.
I seem to be unemployed. I just remotely logged off my work laptop and removed it from Slack. #OneTeam forever. I loved you all so much.
So sad to have to end like this 💔
— Simon Balmain (@SBkcrn) November 4, 2022
Well, my whole team just got locked out. officially an ex-Tweep. it’s been a wild ride 🫡💙 #OneTeam
— neeks (@neeks_cap) November 4, 2022
Twitter is so special. After 4 years, I’m leaving with the most 💙, experiences I never imagined and unbreakable bonds with so many Tweeps. I hold my head high, knowing that I gave it my all. @TwitterComms: We have a lot to be proud of. It’s time to fly even higher! #OneTeampic.twitter.com/5tVUP575A6
— Julie Steele (@juliezsteele) November 4, 2022
From the first moment I joined the world-class #DreamTeam better known as Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility on Twitter, I knew I was ready to make the world a better place for everyone. The lesson is in the detail. Look at the 💙 coming out of this #LoveWhereYouWorked
— Danielle Evans (@envyred_) November 4, 2022
I’m officially out 🫡
It’s been the greatest pleasure to be part of the responsible ML research family on Twitter for the past year and a half 🫶🏽 – more announcements to come. #TwitterLayoffs
— Irene Font Peradejordi 🎈 (@if_peradejordi) November 4, 2022
Honestly happy to be fired, but @elonmusk’s veil is pierced. As messy as Twitter was before Elon, it’s now a veritable clown town of politics and toadyism and psychological abuse. Scared to get into my Tesla with what I learned this week.
— Kushal Dave (@krave) November 4, 2022
Others jumped before finding out if they should be pushed:
Some news: I resigned from my role at Twitter last week and today is my official last day.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one at the right time. I left on my own terms and hoped that by doing so, it meant others could have a chance to keep their jobs.
— Andrew Haigh (@AndrewHaigh) November 4, 2022
Updated at 18.59 GMT
Here’s a helpful explanation, courtesy of Reuters, of the class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk and Twitter alleging that layoffs violate US and California law if employees are not given advance notice or severance pay.
What does US law require?
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (Warning) requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days notice before engaging in mass layoffs, defined as those affecting at least 500 employees during a …