Elon Musk Dissolves Twitter’s Trust and Safety Advisory Group Over Email

Elon Musk’s Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of round 100 impartial civil, human rights and different organizations that the corporate fashioned in 2016 to handle hate speech, little one exploitation, suicide, self-harm and different issues on the platform.

The council had been scheduled to fulfill with Twitter representatives Monday night time. But Twitter knowledgeable the group through electronic mail that it was disbanding it shortly earlier than the assembly was to happen, based on a number of members.

The council members, who supplied photographs of the e-mail from Twitter to The Associated Press, spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of fears of retaliation. The electronic mail stated 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,” stated the e-mail, which was signed “Twitter.”

The volunteer group supplied experience and steering on how Twitter may higher fight hate, harassment and different harms however did not have any decision-making authority and did not evaluate particular content material disputes. Shortly after shopping for Twitter for $44 billion in late October, Musk stated he would type a brand new “content moderation council” to assist make main selections however later modified his thoughts.

“Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a gaggle of volunteers who over a few years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter workers to supply recommendation on a variety of on-line harms and issues of safety,” tweeted council member Alex Holmes. “At no point was it a governing body or decision making.”

Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, had confirmed the meeting with the council Thursday in an email in which it promised an “open conversation and Q&A” with Twitter staff, including the new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin.

That came on the same day that three council members announced they were resigning in a public statement posted on Twitter that said that “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”

Those former council members soon became the target of online attacks after Musk amplified criticism of them and Twitter’s past leadership for allegedly not doing enough to stop child sexual exploitation on the platform.

“It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk tweeted.

A growing number of attacks on the council led to concerns from some remaining members who sent an email to Twitter earlier on Monday demanding the company stop misrepresenting the council’s role.

Those false accusations by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and former Council members,” the email said.

The Trust and Safety Council, in fact, had as one of its advisory groups one that focused on child exploitation. This included the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Rati Foundation and YAKIN, or Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need.