But for years, public pressure from government officials, civil society organizations, and the media has pushed tech companies to invest in teams and tools that are more likely to address issues of hate speech or misinformation on social media, in order to say they are doing good. a faith effort to deal with the issue.
Musk’s purchase of Twitter signaled a change, according to six former security and trust employees from Twitter and Meta.
When Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he quickly fired more than 50 percent of the company’s employees, including nearly all of the company’s trust and security and policy staff—people tasked with creating and enforcing the platform’s policies on things like hate speech, violent content, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. – and misinformation. Since then, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Discord have all lost trust and security personnel.
Not long after Musk removed Twitter from its trust and security teams, other companies began to be laid off. In November 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 workers, including many loyal and safe workers. In January 2023, Google followed suit, firing 12,000 people. Earlier this year, Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, disbanded its Security Advisory Council.
“I think Elon really opened the floodgates,” said one former Meta employee. “So the other types of technology were like, ‘We can do that too, because we’re not going to be the black sheep about it.’
Meta spokesman Corey Chambliss tells WIRED that the company has “40,000 people around the world working on safety and security — more than the 2020 cycle, when we have a global team of 35,000 people working in this area,” though he didn’t say how many of those people are employees. compared to foreign workers.
Musk’s sudden firing made it so that “anyone else could come and fire their teams and split them up and it would be great.” Better,” said a former Twitter employee who was fired by Musk.
After Musk fired loyal security and security staff, experts warned that these cuts, coupled with Musk’s “freedom of speech,” would allow toxic content to flood the platform and eventually cause an exodus of users and advertisers, leading to Twitter’s eventual demise. Hate speech and misinformation are rampant and advertisers are leading them. Last year, X fired the remaining members of his election team. At the same time, Musk wrote to X, saying, “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining the integrity of the election? Yes, they are no more.”
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