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Elon Musk’s rapid changes at Twitter are risking the safety of its most vulnerable users around the world including human rights activists and free speech in autocratic countries according to the social network’s former head of trust and safety Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
people need to very thoughtfully and carefully weigh the cost and benefits of using Twitter given their security situation,” Yoel Roth, who resigned from his position as Twitter’s head of trust & safety told all thing considered host Ari Shapiro. and that’s a terrifying prospect for many people who have spent the better part of a decade building a platform an audience and a community on Twitter
Since Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in late October the billionaire has upended sowing chaos and confusion for employees users and the advertisers it depends on
musk has rapidly transformed Twitter’s previous approach to what is and isn’t allowed he reinstated accounts that had been barred for violating Twitter rules including that of former president Donald Trump who was banned after the Jan. 6 2021 US Capitol insurrection Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
last week, Musk announced a general amnesty for also suspending the rapper formerly Kanye West on Thursday after he posted an image of a swastika inside a Star of David]. This week Twitter quietly updated its online rulebook to say it was no longer enforcing policies against misleading claims about COVID-19 19 Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
Meanwhile, Musk laid off half the company’s staff and issued an ultimatum asking the remaining employees to commit to a new hardcore Twitter or resign which has dramatically shrunk the number of people working to keep Twitter users safe The cuts include contract content moderators the company’s human rights team and investigators and child sexual abuse Material
that’s the real risk You can’t do this work with a skeleton crew Roth said
Twitter which no longer has a communication staff did not respond to a request for comment. in a blog post this week signed by the Twitter team the company said its policies have not changed and that it continues its diligent work to keep the platform safe from hateful conduct abusive behavior and any violation of Twitter’s rules. it said the trust and safety team remains strong and well-resourced Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
Roth said Twitter had been justifiably criticized for being too slow to change. Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Things Still, Musk’s rapid transformation of the small but highly influential social network alarms him in place of that perhaps overly slow culture Mr. Musk is introducing a culture of moving quickly and unfortunately breaking things as a result Roth said in the nearly eight years Roth spent at Twitter he saw the company through a cascade of crises from Russian interference in the 2016 election to the company’s unprecedented decision to ban Trump.
After Musk took control Roth was one of the few high-level executives remaining at the company as the new owner fired the top management
Musk on Twitter versus Musk in private
Roth described a gap between Musk’s public persona as a brash and capricious autocrat – Musk changed his bio to chief Twit after closing the deal and the seasoned executive whom Roth interacted with Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
Those caricatures weren’t accurate to my experience with him Roth said a lot of the times in the weeks that we worked together when a situation would come up I would explain the rules I would explain the factors influencing the situation and would suggest a course of action that was aligned with our policies he would listen to and often accept that approach Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
for example one of Musk’s priorities was to bring back some controversial accounts including the Babylon Bee a conservative satirical site that was suspended for misgendering a Biden administration official
Roth and Musk discussed whether reinstating the account would entail a broader change to Twitter’s rule against misgendering or be a singular exception
[Musk] was convinced ultimately that taking that kind of one-off action would undermine Twitter’s rules and would create gaps in the consistency of enforcement that would make Twitter a less trustworthy place Roth said [Musk would go to reinstate the Babylon bee’s account along with others after Roth resigned].
But as the days went on Roth found that wasn’t always the case when musk took over Roth wrote down red lines he was unwilling to cross including breaking the law and lying publicly an important one he would only stay as long as decisions were made based on twitter’s policies and principles
What matters to me ultimately is not the decision but how the decision is made he said I wouldn’t want to be a part of undermining [Twitter’s approach to governing the platform] with capricious decision-making and unfortunately that’s what happened
Roth resigned from Twitter on Nov. 10th a day after Twitter’s botched rollout of an $8 a month subscription plan giving users blue checkmarks The checks previously indicated the company had verified the identity of high-profile users but under the new program Twitter wasn’t making any effort to confirm subscribers were who they claimed to be
that unleashed a flood of accounts impersonating politicians celebrities and big brands further inflaming relations with advertisers who were already wary of the platform’s direction under Musk. Roth’s team had prepared a lengthy document warning how the feature could be abused in precisely this way and proposing guardrails to mitigate those risks but it was largely ignored
Just the day before he quit Roth had appeared with Musk in a public Twitter audio chat where they attempted to reassure advertisers that the platform was still a safe place for their brands
Advertisers flee hate speech increases
Less than a month, after Musk took over half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers, appeared to have halted spending on the platform according to data compiled by the liberal nonprofit Media Matters for America
Civil rights groups have documented a rise in hate speech on Twitter since Musk took over the company had said a trolling campaign originating on far-right message boards drove a surge in racist homophobic and antisemitic slurs right after the deal closed but that it had stepped up enforcement and banned many of the accounts responsible
On Friday Musk tweeted a graph showing the impression of hate speech meaning how many times people saw such Twitter lower than the level before he took control
But a new report from the Nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate found the daily number of tweets containing hateful terms was substantially higher in late November compared to the baseline before he bought Twitter The number of tweets with the n-word tripled in that time for example
Musk disputed CCDH’s report as utterly false and said hate speech impressions are less than 01% of what’s seen on Twitter. he pledged to publish the rate of hate speech impressions weekly.
Roth said he and former colleagues are heartbroken to see what’s happening to their efforts to keep Twitter users safe Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing
what happens on Twitter can move markets can change elections and it can impact the safety of millions of people around the world he said more than anything else people [who have left the company] are worried about what will happen given Twitter’s importance in the world if there isn’t a team left to do that type of work.” Twitter’s Former Safety Chief Warns Musk Is Moving Fast And Breaking Thing