2024-01-11 12:49:00
AX Corp., the company that owns the social network X (formerly Twitter), has fired 80% of its engineers focused on the platform’s security since its acquisition by Elon Musk. The information was released by the Australian government’s online safety commission, which is investigating the way the company treats the protection of its users.
According to the document accessed on Wednesday (10) by Forbes, globally, the company had 279 security engineers in October 2022 — the month in which Elon Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter Inc. for US$44 billion. In May 2023, the number of industry specialists on staff fell to 55, that is, a reduction of 80%.
Over the same period, X’s entire trust and safety team of 4,062 employees fell to 2,849, while its full-time content moderation team was cut in half, from 107 to 51.
Most moderators, on the other hand, were hired for a fixed period. In October 2022, the number of moderators hired was 2,720; in May 2023, the number was reduced to 2,356.
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According to eSafety, the Australian government’s cybersecurity commission, these layoffs had a severe impact on the social network, causing employees to response times to hate tweets decreased by 20% since Musk’s acquisition. The company’s attempts to deal with hateful direct messages decreased by 70%.
OX claims that following dissolving its Trust and Security Council, which provided external advice, it did not seek to establish a replacement body. At the time, Musk talked regarding establishing a “moderation council” with a plurality of ideas.
The security gaps, however, were not completely filled before Elon Musk took over as owner and CEO. To the Australian government agency, the company revealed that it did not have a team working full-time on issues of misconduct globally, even before the acquisition by the founder of SpaceX.
Julie Inman Grant, eSafety commissioner who previously worked at the company between 2014 and 2016, says her department focused its efforts on investigating X due to an increase in reports of hate spreading on the platform following Musk’s arrival.
“You create the perfect storm by introducing tens of thousands of dangerous drivers back onto the roads without any kind of scrutiny, restraint or oversight,” she said.
In a related note, in December 2023, the commission declared that it was adopting corrective measures once morest the North American company, due to its resistance to providing information in response to a request aimed at clarifying the procedure adopted to combat cases of child sexual abuse in your platform.
OX had refused to pay a fine of US$409,000 for failing to disclose the required information, and if the court rules in favor of the Australian government, the amount might increase daily from the moment the company was out of compliance , which might reach hundreds of millions of dollars.
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