by The breakup email came less than an hour before board members expected to meet Twitter executives via Zoom to discuss recent developments, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans.
Dozens of civil rights leaders, academics, and advocates from around the world have been volunteering for years to help improve security on the platform.
“We are grateful for your efforts, advice and cooperation over the past few years and wish you every success in the future,” said the email, which was simply signed “Twitter.”
In less than two months, Musk undid years of investment in trust and safety on Twitter, laying off key parts of the workforce and reinstating accounts that had previously been suspended.
The Trust and Safety Council disbanded after Musk himself floated the creation of a content moderation board that would weigh in on key content moderation decisions, but later appeared to have changed his mind about introducing such a body.
Many members were already close to quitting, said Larry Magid, chief executive officer of ConnectSafely, a Silicon Valley nonprofit that advises consumers on children’s Internet use.
“By dissolving it, we were fired instead of quit,” he said. him to rehire some of the staff that he got rid of and restore some of the rules that he got rid of and spin the company in a different direction than where it’s spinning it.
Last week, three members of the Trust and Safety Council resigned, warning that “the safety and well-being of Twitter users is in decline”.
Musk responded to responses to their tweet by announcing their resignations, writing, “It’s a crime that they have refused to take action against child exploitation for years!”
Jack Dorsey, the company’s former CEO, responded to Musk saying it was “fake”. But the response still prompted a rash of threats of harassment against board members who left the board, as well as some who stayed on.
Musk’s handling of the board mirrored a spate of attacks involving a former top company executive over the weekend.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and security, and his family were forced from their home after Elon Musk’s tweets misrepresented Roth’s academic writings on sexual activity and children. The online mafia also sent threats to people Roth had responded to on Twitter, forcing some of Roth’s family and friends to delete their Twitter accounts, according to a person familiar with Roth’s situation who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the Roth’s safety concerns.
Musk’s followers also directed harassment at professors who reviewed the thesis Roth wrote in 2016, as well as at his graduate school, the University of Pennsylvania, the person said. The university did not respond to a request for comment.
As Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Roth was involved in many of the platform’s decisions about which posts to remove and which accounts to suspend. His communications with other Twitter officials were published in recent days as part of what Musk calls the Twitter Files, a series of tweets by conservative journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss.
Musk’s tweets to his tens of millions of followers have prompted his supporters for years to shower the targets of his ire with online threats — famously, a participant in the rescue of a men’s soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand, which Musk he’s labeled a “pedo guy.” But now that Musk owns one of the most powerful social networks in the world and has gutted the corporate division that previously controlled online harassment, the stakes are even higher.
Musk’s tweets about Roth were reminiscent of the QAnon conspiracy movement, which falsely claims that Democratic Party leaders run a child sex abuse ring.
“It appears that Yoel is advocating for children to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,” Musk tweeted Saturday, attaching a screenshot of Roth’s thesis.
In the text, Roth suggested that services like gay dating app Grindr should adopt safety strategies to accommodate teens using their platforms, rather than kicking them out altogether. Musk also commented on a 2010 tweet in which Roth wrote, “Can high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with their teachers?” Roth then linked to an article about a Washington State Supreme Court ruling on what age students can consent to have sex with their teachers.
Musk’s critical comments about Roth have been something of an about-face since his early days at the company, when Roth appeared to be one of the few top Twitter executives supported by Musk. On Oct. 30, the billionaire tweeted: “I want to be clear that I support Yoel. My feeling is that he has high integrity and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.”
And Roth appeared measured in his comments about Twitter’s new owner, seeking to reassure the public about the company’s efforts to fight hate speech and protect elections. He even appeared alongside Musk in a call meant to reassure advertisers.
Even after leaving Twitter in November, Roth remained mute in his criticisms. He warned in an op-ed in The New York Times that there was “little need” for a trust and safety function in a company where “policies are set by edict.” But he has also publicly stated that it was incorrect to describe Musk as the “villain of history” in his takeover of the company.
“I think one of the tricky things about Elon specifically is that people really want him to be the villain of the story, and they want him to be unequivocally wrong and bad, and everything he says is false,” Roth said during a Knight Foundation conference interview. “I have to say…that wasn’t my experience with him.”
Still, Roth is the most visible former Twitter executive pricing Musk’s stock, and his role at the company has been highlighted in Twitter files.
Twitter employees have long been wary of Musk’s ability to stoke criticism online. Shortly after announcing his plans to take over the company in April, he tweeted a meme to his tens of millions of followers featuring the face of Twitter’s top attorney, Vijaya Gadde, which appeared to suggest the company’s decisions were influenced by a ” left wing injury.”
Twitter users quickly piled up, demanding Musk fire Gadde or using racist language to describe her. Gadde was born in India and immigrated to the United States as a child. One user said she would “go down in history as a scary person”.
Such harassment is part of a years-long pattern for Musk, with little legal ramifications to date. Musk was ultimately not held liable in a defamation lawsuit filed after he made his “pedo” remarks.
Joseph Menn and Naomi Nix contributed from San Francisco.
