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Washington – Twitter’s new proprietor Elon Musk has pledged the platform is not going to devolve right into a “free-for-all hellscape,” however consultants warn that mass layoffs on Friday might deeply impair the social community’s potential to curb misinformation.
Twitter fired roughly half of its 7,500-strong workforce, solely days earlier than subsequent week’s midterm elections in america, when a spike in faux content material is anticipated throughout social media.
The cuts, which comes after Musk’s blockbuster $44 million buyout of the corporate, hit a number of divisions, together with belief and security groups that handle content material moderation in addition to engineering and machine studying, US reviews mentioned.
“I might be actual cautious on this platform within the coming days… about what you retweet, who you comply with, and even your personal sense of what’s happening,” mentioned Kate Starbird, a disinformation researcher and assistant professor on the College of Washington.
Starbird warned in her personal Twitter put up of an elevated threat of “impersonation” makes an attempt, “coordinated disinformation by manipulators” and “hoaxes that try to get you to unfold falsehoods.”
Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief government officer on the nonpartisan group Free Press, mentioned she was involved about Twitter doubtlessly loosening its content-moderation efforts previous to the election, “after we know social media goes off the rails to misinform, intimidate and hurt voters of coloration.”
“Twitter was already a hellscape earlier than Musk took over, and his actions… will solely make it worse,” mentioned Gonzalez.
– ‘Deeply troubling’ –
Free Press is a part of a coalition of greater than 60 civil society teams that on Friday referred to as on advertisers to boycott the platform till it dedicated to being a “protected place.”
Members of the coalition met with Musk earlier this week after tutorial research reported a dramatic improve in hate speech, Nazi memes and racist slurs after his acquisition of the corporate.
One research by Montclair State College discovered that Musk’s buy had “created the notion by extremist customers that content material restrictions can be alleviated.”
“We met with Elon Musk earlier this week to specific our profound issues about a few of his plans and the spike in poisonous content material after his acquisition,” mentioned the coalition, which makes use of the hashtag “Cease Poisonous Twitter.”
“Since that point, hate and disinformation have continued to proliferate, and Musk has taken actions that make us concern that the worst is but to come back,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
However Musk rejected that evaluation, tweeting that “now we have truly seen hateful speech at instances this week decline *under* our prior norms,” although he provided up no information to again up this assertion.
“To be crystal clear, Twitter’s sturdy dedication to content material moderation stays completely unchanged,” Musk wrote on Friday.
Individually, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity, mentioned that combating dangerous misinformation in the course of the midterms was a “prime precedence” for the corporate.
Musk, a self-professed free-speech absolutist, had promised to cut back Twitter’s content material restrictions, and for the reason that acquisition has introduced plans to create a “content material moderation council” that can overview firm insurance policies.
“Whereas Musk has publicly dedicated to transparency, his resolution to put off the workers members devoted to this work is deeply troubling,” mentioned Zeve Sanderson, government director of the New York College’s Middle for Social Media and Politics.
Musk insisted that the layoffs had been vital as the corporate was dropping greater than $4 million per day.
Twitter has lengthy struggled to generate revenue and has didn’t hold tempo with Fb, Instagram and TikTok in gaining new customers.
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