Twitter chaos: Elon Musk dismantles its Trust and Safety advisory group that looks after abusive content

The Trust and Safety Council was dissolved by the new boss, billionaire Elon Musk. A group of 100 independent civil, human rights organizations had been keeping an eye on the hate, suicide, self- harm, abusive and sexual content posted on the platform. There were reports of abusive and harmful content on the platform. The members of the Associated Press said that the decision was taken hours before the meeting with the representatives of the micro-messaging service. Some of the members said that they were told about the dismantling of the Council in a mail.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The council is not the best structure to do this, according to an email. The email said that the work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before. The volunteer group provided expertise and guidance on how to better combat hate, harassment and other harms, but didn't have any decision-making authority and didn't review specific content disputes. Musk said he would form a new "content moderation council" to help make major decisions but later changed his mind. 

Advertisement

The Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted byTwitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online harms and safety issues. At no point was it a governing body. Since Musk took over the platform in the last week of October, he implemented a number of changes, most of which were considered critical for both its employees and users. The major changes are subscription-based model, editing feature, long text, long video and others. Musk faced global criticism for implementing a paid verification model. 

Advertisement