Just days after Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk gutted its staff, the company is facing what could be a storm of disinformation: Election Day.
Musk fired 3,700 of the company’s 7,500 employees on Friday, many of whom were members of the marketing, communications, curation, engineering or human rights teams. A large number were based in New England, according to one current employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. After years of cultivating a relatively good reputation for content moderation, Twitter is staring down a major test.
Half of the people on a team focused on election work were eliminated, the employee said.
“It definitely adversely impacts [their] capacity to do work in advance of [elections on] Tuesday,” they said.
Under Musk, Twitter also rolled out new approaches to “blue checkmark” verification and impersonation. Impersonators who don’t clearly label their accounts as “parody” will be permanently kicked off the platform — a new rule that will face a high-profile test during the midterm elections.
Ethan Zuckerman, professor of public policy communication and information at UMass Amherst, told GBH News that Twitter has made “vast strides in the last four or five years” when it comes to content moderation.
“Twitter had a real reputation of being quite a bit more rough-and-tumble than some of the other platforms,” Zuckerman said. “They’ve actually built up a really terrific trust and safety department and created a space that was significantly safer for marginalized people and significantly more thoughtful about mis- and disinformation than many other spaces.
“Losing 3,700 people probably will change how the platform works and feels,” he added. “When people see hateful content, they report it to the trust and safety team. And if that team is radically understaffed, then they may not be able to take it down.”
A top Twitter executive said last week that 15% of the trust and safety department was laid off, compared to the 50% layoff rate companywide.
On Thursday night, rumors emerged that a huge share of Twitter’s staff would be axed from their jobs at the social media giant. Sneaking suspicions led to confirmation from management that by 12 p.m. EST on Friday, Twitter employees would know their fate.
Twitter discourse among those let go was, for the most part, supportive. With hashtags like #LoveWhereYouWork and #TwitterFamily, both current and former employees showed their support to their colleagues and wished them luck in future endeavors.
But the atmosphere was much different behind the scenes. The current Twitter employee who spoke to GBH News said internal communication on Slack was “overwhelmingly negative.”
“There’s a lot of grief and sadness,” they said. “Literally half of our teams are cut. It’s so painful, it’s like a battlefield. You’re looking at the bodies and it’s really tragic.”
The employee added that many were fearful of posting their genuine opinions on the site for fear of retribution because, in the past, Musk has reportedly fired Tesla employees for speaking out against the electric-vehicle company he also serves as CEO.
“He’s such a hypocrite,” the employee said. “He wants to talk about free speech, but then if someone is critical of him or the company, he fires them. Because we’re aware of that as a dynamic, I think some employees self-censor publicly.”
The email notifying Twitter employees about their job status told fired employees that they’d have 60 days of paid employment left, though they will not have access to any of the company’s systems. Following the 60 days, employees will receive one month’s pay of severance — meaning that by Feb. 4, the employees’ ties with Twitter will officially be cut.
If Twitter hadn’t given employees two months’ notice, the company might have opened itself up to a major lawsuit. On Thursday, the night before the mass layoff, former attorney general candidate for Massachusetts Shannon Liss-Riordan filed a preemptive suit.
Liss-Riordan previously sued Musk over mass layoffs at Tesla.
“Billionaires and CEOs like Elon Musk have lots of legal representation,” she said. “I think it's very important that the scales be balanced and employees have strong and aggressive representation. We're not going anywhere. We're going to keep an eye on the situation and pursue any claims that may be necessary.”
So what’s Musk’s broader plan for the social media platform now that he’s the sole decision-maker? The Twitter employee said they personally think his gameplan is “intergalactic domination.”
“I mean, I’m only half-joking,” the employee said. “I think he wants to rule the world, and owning Twitter is an enormously important part of that because it means you own the narrative. You drive the narrative. He wants control.”
