Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition has been making quite some noise. The speculations about Musk’s upcoming moves and his actual actions were the talk of the town. Amidst this, it was brought to light that Twitter had limited certain employees from accessing internal tools that were utilized for content moderation as well as policy enforcement.
This was done in light of cracking down on the staff’s capacity for governing false information ahead of the mid-term elections next week i.e 8th November 2022. It should be noted that during the most recent Brazilian presidential elections, only a select group of individuals had access to police Twitter’s rules.
The majority of the staff members of the social media giant are currently prohibited from changing or suspending accounts that violate the rules. These regulations covered a wide range of topics, including tweeting false information, hate speech, offensive tweets, and posts that threaten actual harm. According to reports, manual enforcement was emphasized for these posts.
In addition to this, the firm has been employing automated enforcement technology as well as third-party contractors. However, the highest-profile violations are usually examined by Twitter employees.
Here’s how Twitter has been easing its ownership transition
Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has been rather controversial. From sacking prominent employees to dissolving the nine-member board, Musk acquired the social media platform in a chaotic manner.
To further ease the process, the above limitation was at par with locking down Twitter’s source code to prevent staff members from making updates to the application while it is being transferred to new ownership. It should be noted that over 100 employees entailed access. However, it was reduced to 15 individuals ahead of Musk’s takeover.
Furthermore, right after Musk’s Twitter takeover, the number of hate speeches on the social media platform recorded a surge. Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth addressed the same and revealed that the platform had taken down 1500 accounts and further minimized “impressions on this content to nearly zero.”
He further tweeted,
“We’re primarily dealing with a focused, short-term trolling campaign.”
While Musk is all about upholding free speech, the community fears the potential surge in hate speeches across the platform.