Elon Musk now defends Twitter’s “strong commitment” to content moderation

Elon Musk likes absolutes. The richest man in the world has gone from calling himself an “absolutist of freedom” of expression to defending Twitter’s content moderation policy, a “strong commitment” that remains “absolutely unchanged”. In between, the flight of advertisers for fear that their advertising will appear alongside racist and hateful messages. The tycoon born in Pretoria (South Africa) has also spoken for the first time about the massive layoffs that the company has undertaken this Friday, justifying them by the losses of more than four million dollars suffered by the company.

Musk has paid 44,000 million dollars for a company as emblematic as it is loss-making. He unsuccessfully tried to back out and, forced to buy it, in just one week of management he has turned the company upside down. He has closed the offices to undertake the massive dismissal of approximately half of the workforce and has caused the escape of advertisers, who fear that the social network will no longer be a suitable environment for their campaigns.

Now, the businessman has taken a drastic turn in his speech. In a tweet this Friday night, Musk has said: “To be clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.” That commitment is the same one that Musk railed against before buying the social network. The person in charge of this content moderation policy, Vijaya Gadde, was called by the tycoon “chief censor”. It was one of the first goodbyes as soon as the new owner took control of the company.

Before that message about the strong commitment to content moderation, Musk had denounced “a massive drop in income, because activist groups put pressure on advertisers.” The billionaire said that he had done “everything possible to appease the activists.” And he concluded emphatically: “He is a big mess. They are trying to destroy freedom of expression in the United States”, without providing any evidence in this regard. No organization has threatened to boycott those who advertise on Twitter.

Subsequently, the irascible Musk has threatened to “name and shame” —supposedly— to the companies that have suspended their advertising “if this continues”. He has referred to that threat as a thermonuclear bomb. The businessman frequently responds to users with a check mark who criticize him online with dry messages asking them to pay the $8 monthly fee you want to set for those who have their identity certified.

Musk had previously announced the creation of an advisory board to establish a new content moderation policy, although without specifying either its composition or the term for its work. Although he indicated that he would maintain his policy in the meantime, his arrival was greeted with a rise in racist and hate messages. The businessman maintains that “sometimes” this week the hate speech on the network has been below the usual average, which is not saying much either.

In addition, specialized media assure that among those fired this Friday were, for example, the teams in charge of avoiding misinformation related to the legislative elections on November 8 on the platform. Even the president of the United States, Joe Biden, has spoken of the operation: “Elon Musk goes and buys a business that spews lies all over the world,” he has said. “There are no publishers in the United States anymore,” he added.

For her part, the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, has warned that “there is no room for hate speech.” The president has long said that social media companies must take action to tackle the spread of hate on their platforms. And he has also been clear in his concern about the power that the large social media platforms have over daily life, ”he said at a press conference.

half of the template

The current head of Trust and Security of the social network, Yoel Roth, has assured that the cut in staff has affected 15% of his department, compared to an average of approximately 50% in the company as a whole, that is, about 3,700 of its approximately 7,500 workers. Roth is the first top Twitter executive to publicly confirm the job cut by almost half.

The executive maintains that the front-line moderation staff is the one that has been least affected and assures that the “absolute priority” of his department, before the elections next Tuesday, continue to be the “efforts in terms of electoral integrity —including the harmful disinformation that can suppress the vote and the fight against the operations of information supported by States—”.

Musk has also intervened in the social network to justify the massive layoffs that the company has undertaken. This Friday, about half of the employees received an email telling them they were out of work. Musk has decided to temporarily close the offices for security reasons.

This Friday he tweeted: “As for Twitter downsizing, there is sadly no option when the company is losing over four million dollars a day. All those who have left have been offered three months of compensation, which is 50% more than what the law requires.” The regulations require a 60-day notice for mass layoffs. Some workers have sued the employer for failing to comply.

In the first six months of this year, Twitter had revenue of $2.377 billion and a profit of $243 million, but those gains were due to extraordinary results from the sale of its mobile advertising platform MoPub for just over $1 billion. Dollars. In the second quarter, Twitter lost 270 million dollars, about three million a day, due to the drop in advertising revenue and the increase in costs, part of them related to the operation of the sale to Musk and compensation.

Musk, in addition, has indebted the company with some 13,000 million dollars, which implies a financial burden that he cannot sustain with the results he generates. Musk has not specified whether those four million daily debt losses are operating results or also include interest on the debt.