According to Irwin, Twitter will restrict the distribution of hateful and abusive content rather than outright removing such posts. This is in line with Elon Musk’s idea of free speech on the platform. In areas including child exploitation, the company has already started aggressively restricting abuse-prone hashtags and search results. Unfortunately, an automated process means “benign uses” of those terms are also affected. “The biggest thing that’s changed is the team is fully empowered to move fast and be as aggressive as possible,” Irwin said in an interview with Reuters last week. Her comments come amid questions about the company’s ability to maintain user safety. Twitter’s former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth recently said that the platform is less safe under Musk because there aren’t enough experienced people to maintain the safety standards in the long run. However, Twitter states that its safety team is “strong and well-resourced”. Irwin reiterated that during the interview. She said the mass layoffs did not significantly impact full-time employees or contractors in “Health” divisions. Health divisions concern areas such as child safety and content moderation. Irwin said the company has the same number of people working on child safety today as it had before Musk’s acquisition. The product manager is still there too.
Elon Musk is focused on using automation more for Twitter content moderation
Elon Musk has been promoting free speech on Twitter aggressively since taking over the company. He has also reinstated several suspended accounts and announced a general amnesty for everyone who hasn’t broken the law or engaged in egregious spam. These decisions led to a surge in hate speech on the platform, causing many top advertisers to flee. There were concerns that Twitter will become a hellscape as the company doesn’t have enough people to look after it. However, Musk recently revealed that most advertisers have returned, which is a sign of encouragement. Perhaps Twitter’s recent announcement that it hasn’t changed its policies and that it will only allow “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” helped it regain the lost trust. Irwin said the new Twitter boss has made safety his top priority and encourages employees to focus on that without worrying about user growth and revenue. “He emphasizes that every single day, multiple times a day,” she said. Of course, automation of much of the moderation process is Musk’s focus. “He’s encouraged the team to take more risks, move fast, get the platform safe,” she said. Twitter also plans to use “trusted reporters” to remove abusive tweets. When users “with a track record of accurately flagging harmful posts” report a tweet, the company will remove it immediately. This is something Twitter considered before but never implemented. Irwin says it may now have the ability to “move forward with things like that.”
