The Trust and Safety Council, an advisory body made up of about 100 independent civil rights, human rights, and other organizations, has been disbanded by Elon Musk’s Twitter. The council was established in 2016 to address issues like hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm, and other issues on the platform.
On Monday night, the council was supposed to meet with Twitter representatives. However, according to some participants, Twitter told the group through email that it was dissolving just before the scheduled meeting.
The council members spoke to reporters under the condition of anonymity because of concern for retaliation. They provided screenshots of the email via Twitter. Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights,” according to the email, and the council is “not the appropriate structure to do this”.
The email, which was signed “Twitter,” stated that “our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving quicker and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to encourage your thoughts moving forward about how to achieve this aim.”
The volunteer committee offered knowledge and recommendations on how Twitter should more effectively tackle hatred, abuse, and other ills, but it lacked any formal ability to make decisions and didn’t look into individual content disputes. Musk first stated he would create a new “content moderation committee” to assist in making big choices shortly after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in late October, but he then changed his mind.
Council member Alex Holmes tweeted, “Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter personnel to offer advice on a wide range of online abuses and safety problems.” There was never a governing body or decision-making involved.
San Francisco-based Twitter, which confirmed the meeting with the council on Thursday, promised an “open conversation and Q&A” with staff members, including the newly appointed director of trust and safety, Ella Irwin.
This occurred on the same day that three council members sent a public statement on Twitter announcing their resignation, claiming that “contrary to assertions by Elon Musk, the safety and wellness of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”
Following Musk’s escalating criticism of the former council members and former Twitter executives for supposedly not doing more to stop child sexual exploitation on the network, those individuals were soon the target of internet assaults.
They were committing a crime by delaying taking action against child exploitation for so long. Tweets from Musk.
Some of the council’s surviving members were concerned about the increasing number of attacks on it, so they earlier on Monday sent Twitter an email requesting that the business stop misrepresenting the council’s function.
The email said that the false allegations made by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and past Council members.”
In fact, one of the advisory groups for the Trust and Safety Council was dedicated to preventing child exploitation. This included YAKIN, or Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need, the Rati Foundation, and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Patricia Cartes, a former employee of Twitter who was tasked with creating the council in 2016, stated on Monday that its dissolution “means there are no more checks and balances.” According to Cartes, the firm aimed to provide the council with a global perspective by bringing in specialists from other countries who might voice concerns about how potential new Twitter policies or products would harm local populations.
She compared that to Musk’s present method of asking his Twitter followers for feedback prior to making a change to the way content is controlled.
She remarked, “He doesn’t really care what the experts think.”
