Musk Cuts More Staff In Charge Of Misinformation As Laid Off Employees Criticize Severance Packages

Topline

Twitter reportedly cut more than a dozen foreign employees—including members of the platform’s department in charge of misinformation policy—in its latest round of job cuts as CEO Elon Musk comes under fire for his handling of the site’s loosening of content moderation policies, while some laid off employees received relatively small severance agreements months after they were let go.

Twitter reportedly offered severance packages to employees affected in the company’s massive round … [+] of layoffs in November, as the company faces lawsuits alleging it failed to provide adequate notice to employees affected by the cuts.

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Key Facts

Twitter’s layoffs affect staff on its misinformation, global appeals and state media departments in its Dublin, Ireland, and Singapore offices, Bloomberg reported.

It comes two months after Musk laid off members of content moderation in charge of tackling misinformation on the platform, amid a round of massive cuts that affected roughly half of its workforce.

Also: Hundreds of Twitter employees that had been laid off in November (though still on payroll) also received severance agreements on Saturday, Insider reported, that some said promised only an additional month severance.

In that case, it would total roughly three months of salary, compared to six months of severance to laid off employees from Facebook and four months to Snap, according to past reports—Musk had pledged three months for laid off employees in November.

One affected former staffer told Insider they refused to sign and opted to participate in a class action lawsuit filed by former employees who accuse Twitter of failing to provide staff adequate notice required by federal and state labor laws.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Forbes inquiry requesting more details on the layoffs and severance packages, although company head of trust and safety Ella Irwin told Bloomberg that specific departments were not targeted in the cuts and that they were intended to “consolidate teams.”

Key Background

Musk has come under fire for his plan to loosen the platform’s moderation policies, with hate speech on the platform allegedly spiking after he took over. Days before he completed the purchase, Musk attempted to assuage advertisers that he wouldn’t let the platform descend into a “free-for-all hellscape,” although his promise wasn’t enough to prevent several high-profile businesses from pulling their ads. In November, Twitter’s former Head of Safety and Integrity Yoel Roth admitted there had been a “surge in hateful content” on the platform since Musk took over. Roth later criticized Musk’s rollout of his Twitter Blue feature, which allowed people to purchase blue verification check marks and bypass the platform’s vetting process and led to slew of imposter accounts that spread disinformation on multiple companies and celebrities and politicians.

Tangent

Musk reportedly laid off roughly half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees within a month of taking over the company, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. Initial reports had indicated Musk would cut anywhere from 25% to 75% of the company’s workforce, which he denied.

What We Don’t Know

Whether Musk will step down as CEO. He announced last month he would resign if he finds a replacement “foolish enough to take on the job,” after the majority of respondents in a poll he posted on the platform said he should. One day earlier, however, Musk had, suggested he would restrict policy decisions on Twitter polls to Twitter Blue subscribers, after more than half of respondents to the poll called on him to step down.

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Key Facts

Key Background

Tangent

What We Don’t Know

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