Musk Defends Deep Cuts to Company’s Workforce

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has defended sacking about half the company’s workforce, saying he had “no choice” as Twitter was losing more than $4m (£3.5m) a day.

A tweet from Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, referred to “approximately 50% cuts company-wide.”

But Mr Musk said the social media giant’s commitment to content moderation was “absolutely unchanged.”

Mr Musk, the world’s richest man, took over Twitter in a $44bn (£38.7bn) deal.

The billionaire insisted in his own tweet that all those losing their jobs were offered three months of severance pay, “which is 50% more than legally required.”

As reports emerged on Friday that thousands of staff at Twitter around the world were losing their jobs, questions were asked over the future of employees responsible for taking down harmful material.

Relax Moderation Policies
Online safety groups and campaigners have suggested Mr Musk might relax moderation policies, making Twitter less effective at removing hate-speech and disinformation from the platform.

Permanent Twitter bans given to controversial figures – including former president Donald Trump – could also be removed.

These concerns were fuelled by Mr Musk’s comments on Friday, which sought to blame Twitter’s “massive drop in revenue” on “activist groups” who were “trying to destroy free speech in America.”

But Mr Roth’s tweet thread, posted later in the day, confirmed that most of the more than 2,000 content moderators working on “front-line review” were not impacted.

He said the “reduction in force” affected around 15% of those working in Twitter’s trust and safety organisation – compared with what he said was a 50% cut seen across the company.

Mr Roth added that combating misinformation remained a “top priority” during the US midterm elections. Most Americans will vote on Tuesday, in a key test for Joe Biden’s presidency.

BBC /Shakirat Sadiq