Elon Musk guts another part of Twitter with sudden announcement

San Francisco, California - Twitter's checks and balances are all gone, according to one ex-employee, after Elon Musk abruptly dissolved the platform's Trust and Safety Council on Monday.

Elon Musk abruptly dissolved Twitter's Trust and Safety Council on Monday.
Elon Musk abruptly dissolved Twitter's Trust and Safety Council on Monday.  © REUTERS

The council was an advisory group made up of independent experts, as well as civil and human rights organizations set up in 2016 to help with harassment and abuse on the platform.

But, according to multiple reports, on the day it was supposed to meet with Twitter's new leadership, members got an email informing them that not only would there be no sit-down, but their services were no longer needed.

"As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work," NBC quoted the email as saying. "As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this."

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The move came after Musk spent the last week publicly torching Twitter's supposed past failure to protect children from sexually explicit material posted on the website.

The Tesla CEO instigated a pile-on on former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, who quit in November and was reportedly forced to flee his home after being bombarded with threats.

Elon Musk takes sole charge of content moderation

The Trust and Safety Council only had the power to make recommendations and was not responsible for implementing policies.

Still, as ex-Twitter employee Patricia Cartes told The Associated Press, it helped the platform understand its global impact and act accordingly on content moderation.

It looks like those decisions are now in the hands of Elon Musk alone. Given his increasingly erratic and aggressive online behavior, moderation may be in short supply.

Cover photo: REUTERS

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