Twitter on Monday dissolved the Trust & Safety Council, an advisory body of experts from 100 independent civil and human rights organizations who have helped the company for years set policies on content moderation on the platform.
The Trust and Safety Council, which was formed in 2016, provided input to the social network on various types of content and issues related to human rights, such as the removal of child sexual abuse material, suicide prevention, and online safety.
It is believed that dissolving the board may affect the global moderation of content on Twitter given that the board is made up of experts from all over the world.
According to multiple reports, board members received an email from Twitter on Monday that said: “Our work to make Twitter a safe and helpful place will move faster and stronger than ever before, and we continue to welcome your ideas moving forward on how we can achieve this goal.”
While the company said it would “continue to welcome” board members’ ideas, it did not confirm whether those ideas would be taken into consideration.
The email was sent an hour before the Board had a scheduled meeting with Twitter staff, including the new Head of Trust and Safety, Ella Irwin, and Senior Director of Public Policy, Nick Pickles.
The development follows the resignation of three key members of the Trust and Safety Board last week. The members said in a letter that Elon Musk has ignored the council despite claiming to focus on user safety on the platform.
“The creation of the council represents Twitter’s commitment to moving away from a US-centric approach to user security, stronger collaboration across regions, and the importance of having people with deep expertise on the security team,” the letter read. This latest commitment is no longer evident, given Twitter’s recent statement that it will rely more heavily on automated content moderation.
It is noteworthy that Elon Musk said, after completing his acquisition of Twitter in late October, that he would form a new content moderation council that includes people with different opinions, but something has not happened yet with regard to that council.
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