Widespread layoffs at Twitter started on Friday as its new owner Elon Musk restructures the business, raising serious questions about the disarray that is engulfing the social media site and its capacity to combat misinformation just days before the U.S. midterm elections.
Musk and Twitter could now face legal action due to the speed and scope of the changes. One or more lawsuits claim that Twitter broke the law by failing to give terminated employees the proper notice.
The San Francisco-based business informed employees via email on Thursday that they would find out on Friday whether they had been let go. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety & integrity, stated in a tweet that almost half of the 7,500-person workforce had been let go.
Late Friday, Musk tweeted that the only option was to eliminate the positions “when the firm is losing over $4M/day.” He stated that staff that lost their employment was given three months’ pay as severance, but he did not go into detail about the daily losses the company experiences.
Twitter is the only social media site where government organizations and other important service providers such as electoral boards, police departments, utilities, schools, and news outlets, can reliably educate the public. Many worry that Musk’s job cuts will destroy it and make it lawless.
The front-line moderators at the corporation, according to Roth, were the group least affected by the layoffs.
In his words, “efforts on election integrity, including combating state-backed information operations and damaging misinformation that might depress the vote, remain a high focus” for Twitter.
Twitter’s steadfast commitment to content filtering, according to Musk, hasn’t changed at all.
However, a Twitter employee who spoke with reporters on Friday said that after losing so many colleagues, it will be much more difficult to do that work starting next week.
The employee, who spoke anonymously out of worry for their job security, stated that “this will impair our ability to provide support for elections, sure.”
The employee claimed that aside from what Musk tweets in the open, there is no “clear sense of direction.”
I read his tweets, and they have an impact on how we prioritize our job, the employee claimed. It serves as a very good indicator of what has to be prioritized.
Several employees who tweeted about their terminations claimed that Twitter fired them entirely. These teams included ones that dealt with global conflicts and human rights, another that examined Twitter’s algorithms for bias in tweet amplification, and an engineering team that worked to improve the social media platform’s accessibility for people with disabilities.
During the post-election vote-counting process, disinformation might “spread like wildfire” due to the layoffs so soon to the midterm elections, according to Eddie Perez, a former manager of the Twitter civic integrity team who left his position in September.
He said, “I have a hard time believing that it doesn’t have a meaningful influence on their capacity to handle the quantity of disinformation out there,” and suggested that there could not be enough staff to combat it.
At a campaign stop in Illinois on Friday night, President Joe Biden remarked: “Now what are we all scared about? Elon Musk goes out and purchases a company that disseminates misinformation around the globe. How can we expect young children to comprehend the issues involved?
Employees at Twitter had been anticipating layoffs ever since Musk became CEO. On his first day as owner, he abolished the company’s board of directors and ousted key executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal.
Many Twitter employees turned to the platform as the emails started to circulate to show support for one another. They frequently just tweeted blue love emoticons to represent the company’s blue bird logo.
According to a Twitter manager, many employees learned they had been let go when they were unable to access the company’s computer systems. The manager claimed that the method used to carry out the layoffs demonstrated “a lack of care and consideration.” The manager, who spoke to reporters under the condition of anonymity due to worries about his job security, claimed that managers were not informed in advance of any layoffs.
The employee stated, “As a manager, it’s been terrible since I had to learn about what my team was going to look like through tweets, texts, and phone calls.” “Caring for your people in that sense is incredibly difficult. And Twitter’s managers show a great deal of concern for their staff.
On Friday, a coalition of civil rights organizations stepped up its requests that businesses halt their platform advertising purchases. The groups cautioned that the layoffs are especially risky for transgender people and other groups who face violence motivated by hate speech that is widely spread online as well as for the elections.
Musk blamed activists in a tweet on Friday for what he called a “huge loss in income” since he assumed control of Twitter late last week.
There is “nothing Musk can say to placate advertisers when he’s keeping the company in a perpetual state of uncertainty and volatility, and appears oblivious to Twitter employees and the law,” according to Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.
She remarked, “Musk needs advertising more than they need him. For most firms, removing their ads from Twitter is a simple and quick option.
On behalf of three additional employees who were locked out of their work accounts and one employee who was laid off, a case was submitted on Thursday to the federal court in San Francisco. It claims that by failing to provide the appropriate notice, Twitter broke the law.
No matter if a corporation is publicly traded or privately held, like Twitter is now, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers with at least 100 employees to announce layoffs affecting 500 or more people.
Late on Friday, Twitter filed notifications in California for its San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Jose operations. According to the documents, 983 state employees were affected by the layoffs. Employees were informed on Friday, and Twitter said it will continue to pay salary and benefits to the staff through January 4.
Twitter offices all across the world were impacted by the layoffs. Giving notice to employees would be needed by law in the United Kingdom, according to Emma Bartlett, a partner at CM Murray LLP who specializes in employment and partnership law.
If it turns out that the layoffs disproportionately impacted women, people of color, or older workers, for instance, the speed of the process might expose Musk and Twitter to discrimination charges.
