Elon Musk made the decision on Monday, December 12, to dissolve the Trust and Security Council (Trust and Safety Council) of Twitter, an internal organization of the company made up of a hundred representatives of the associative world and human rights activists. Created in 2016this council had the function of working with the teams of the social network to improve its policies of moderation in terms of hate speech, harassment, sexual exploitation of minors or suicide.
The council members learned the news by e-mail, according to testimonies collected by the Associated Press (AP) from some of them, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. According to the missive, which the American press agency was able to consult and which is not signed, the new direction of the social network “re-evaluates the best way to integrate outside points of view” to the company, and considers that the board, in its current form, “is not the best structure to do so”.
“This Twitter User Protection Council was made up of volunteers who, for many years, volunteered their time when consulted by Twitter employees to advise them on a wide variety of security issues. and online dangers, one of its members, Alex Holmes, said on Twitter, recalling that the council “had never been a governing or decision-making body”.
Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted… https://t.co/AyNTqlTOMY
A harassed ex-employee
The announcement of this dismantling came as a meeting, canceled at the last minute, was to be held between the members of the council and the new head of the trust and security team of the social network, Ella Irwin. This press release also follows shortly, the same day, the resignation of three members of the organization: in a statement posted onlineEirliani Abdul Rahman, Anne Collier and Lesley Podesta justified their decision by stating that, “Contrary to what Elon Musk claims, the safety and well-being of Twitter users is declining”.
Three days earlier, Elon Musk himself had unleashed a wave of harassment against council members by declaring they had “refused to take action against child sexual exploitation for years”. This advisory body, which was not empowered to make decisions, nevertheless had a working group on this issue, recalls AP.
Mr. Musk, who presents himself as a cantor of freedom of expression, also attacked over the weekend the former chief security officer of Twitter, Yoel Roth. This last, according to the American channel CNNhad to leave his home following attempts to intimidate him after the businessman resumed accusations of advocating pedophilia against him.
Shortly after buying Twitter for $44 billion at the end of October, Mr. Musk said he wanted to create a kind of new council of wise people composed of outside personalities, whose role would be to determine the limits of freedom of expression on the social network. The businessman has since given no additional details about this project, nor confirmed that this new advisory body would be put in place.