Elon Musk just axed key Twitter teams such as accessibility, human rights AI ethics, curation, and human rights
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
Elon Musk is wasting no time in making massive reductions at Twitter which
has resulted in the sacking of many teams that are essential to the company. The news of layoffs hit the Twitter platform on
Friday, revealing the billionaire owner of Twitter paints broad strokes when it
is time to cut the staff by half.
On the same day, Musk was adamant about the supposed
influence of activists that was affecting Twitter's revenue as well. He slashed
some departments completely and is likely to make advertisers less confident
about the ability of Musk to steer a vessel with an uninvolved crew. Since he's only been the owner of the company
for one week, it's difficult to believe that these massive reductions will not
cause problems at Twitter, including the policies on content moderation that
are sure to be crucial in Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections to team members who
keep the platform running.
Former Twitter employees who were affected by the layoffs
report an unorganized situation, with no official communication other than
receiving a termination notice or having access to the internal tool such as
Slack or databases suddenly suspended. In the information gap caused by Musk's chaotic
and abrupt response to layoffs, many employees aren't sure whether their
colleagues remain employed and if the teams are continuing to exist.
The cuts seem to be as wide as they were extensive,
impacting everything from Twitter's trust and security teams responsible for
the moderation of content to the marketing division. Below is a selection of teams that have been
eliminated completely or severely affected by layoffs and what the next version
of Twitter will lose as a result.
Human Rights
Former Human Rights Counsel Shannon Raj Singh shared the news
that Twitter's human rights team was sacked on Friday. The team was responsible for protecting those
who face human rights violations across the world, including journalists,
activists as well as those who are affected by conflicts, such as the conflict
in Ukraine.
Accessibility Experience
Twitter's then-former director of accessibility has
confirmed that the company has cut the accessibility experience team. The team
made the platform more accessible to people who have disabilities. The team seems to have had lots to work on prior
to its disbandment.
Communications
It's
not clear at present which areas of Twitter's communication team have been axed
completely; however, the cuts are severe enough that a number of prominent
employees of the company, as well as many of the contacts TechCrunch has had
conversations with throughout the years, were affected. Musk expressed his dislike for internal
communications shortly following his takeover of the company and only provided
a few details to Twitter employees regarding the changes. It's, therefore, no
surprise that the team responsible for internal communications is also affected
and includes the director of internal communications.
Machine learning ethics, transparency and accountability
Musk
disbanded a team known as internally META, and was well-known for its research
work in the field of ethical AI and transparency of algorithms. Rumman Chowdhury, the team's director, was removed together
with the engineers of the team and others.
Curation
Certain layoffs make sense given the issues Musk seems to
have no regard for (human access and rights, which is alarming! ), But Twitter's new owner has eliminated teams
that appeared to assist him in gaining more profit for the firm. This Curation
Team was responsible for coordinating the moment's tab and also
programmed the most popular topics section, offered details on these topics,
and also managed live events -- a lot of aspects of what Twitter does well. The team
also helped stop misinformation from being spread on Twitter -- which is a
major and consequential issue that Musk had already created in just seven days on
the job.
Public policy
Politico informs that half of the department of policy and public affairs was dismissed and including Michele Austin, the former director of elections and public policy in Canada as well as in the U.S., who was actively engaged in elections in the U.S. midterms. These cuts were also reported to include Twitter team members working to check the authenticity of the accounts of politicians.
The story's in the process of developing...
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