Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, claims he has “no choice” but to lay off employees because the company is losing more than $4 million each day.
A week after Mr. Musk’s $44bn (£38.7bn) purchase of Twitter, half of the company’s employees will be laid go.
Twitter employees have been utilizing the platform to discuss their termination.
There are concerns that Twitter may weaken its content filtering, but Mr. Musk stated that the company’s policies are “completely unaffected.”
As rumors surfaced on Friday that thousands of Twitter employees across the globe were being laid off, doubts were raised about the future of employees responsible for removing offensive content.
Online safety groups and activists have speculated that Mr. Musk may relax Twitter’s moderation procedures, making the platform less successful at eradicating hate speech and disinformation.
Permanent bans imposed on unpopular persons, such as former president Donald Trump, could also be lifted. Shortly before the midterm elections in the United States, an increase in disinformation is anticipated.
On Friday, Mr. Musk attempted to attribute Twitter’s “huge decline in revenue” to “activist groups” who are “attempting to undermine free expression in the United States.”
Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity, Yoel Roth, stated that the majority of the more than 2,000 content moderators working on “front-line review” were not affected.
He stated that the “reduction in force” affected only 15% of Twitter’s trust and safety team, compared to a 50% reduction across the company’s approximately 7,500 employees.
Friday, US President Joe Biden expressed alarm over the transaction, stating, “Elon Musk purchases a company that disseminates false information worldwide… How do we expect children to comprehend what is at stake?
An email issued to employees earlier on Friday stated that the mass layoffs were “sadly required to safeguard the company’s future development.”
On Twitter, employees verified that they had been logged out of their work laptops and the communications system Slack.
In posts on the network, numerous employees disclosed that they had been laid off, presenting a picture of global layoffs that affected divisions ranging from marketing to engineering.
There was staff in communications, content curation, and product development.
While awaiting the news of job losses, one employee pondered which would endure longer: his Twitter employee log in or a head of lettuce. This was an allusion to a British newspaper’s viral stunt in which the same question was posed to former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Volkswagen, General Motors, and Pfizer are among the large brands that have ceased advertising on Twitter.
Mr. Musk has been exploring ways to cut costs and generate additional revenue from the site, including ideas to charge a monthly subscription fee for verified users. Almost all of Twitter’s current revenue comes from advertising.
In addition, he proposed that individuals paying the $8 per month price would have their tweets promoted in responses, mentions, and searches, provoking complaints from some Twitter users that he was creating a two-tier system that would favor those willing to pay.
On Thursday, Twitter employees filed a class action complaint claiming the business violated federal and California law by laying off a large number of employees without providing 60 days’ notice.
