Twitter chaos: Amid the chaotic situation at Twitter, its new boss, billionaire Elon Musk has again taken a harsh step and dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. The safety council at the microblogging site comprised a group of 100 independent civil, human rights organisations that had been keeping an eye on the hate, suicide, self-harm, abusive and sexual content posted on the platform. It was formed in 2016 following massive reports of abusive and harmful content on the platform.
While speaking to the news agency the Associated Press, some of its members revealed that the decision was taken hours before a scheduled meeting with Twitter representatives on Monday night. Some of the members said that they received a mail wherein the organisation informed them about the dismantling of the Council. The email said Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and the council is “not the best structure to do this.”
“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said the email, which was signed “Twitter.”
Twitter new boss making critical changes
It is worth mentioning that the volunteer group provided expertise and guidance on how Twitter could better combat hate, harassment and other harms but didn’t have any decision-making authority and didn’t review specific content disputes. Shortly after buying Twitter for $44 billion in late October, Musk said he would form a new “content moderation council” to help make major decisions but later changed his mind.
“Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online harms and safety issues,” tweeted council member Alex Holmes. “At no point was it a governing body or decision making.”
Notably, ever since Musk took over the platform in the last week of October, he implemented a number of changes, most of which were considered critical for both its employees and users. The major changes include-- subscription-based model, editing feature, long text, long video and others. Although he faced global criticism for implementing paid verification model, Musk said he will continue with his plan.
Also Read: Is Twitter working on upgrading the character limit per tweet from 280 to 4000?
