The Trust and Safety Council, a group of around 100 independent civil, human rights, and other organizations that Elon Musk's Twitter established in 2016 to address issues such as hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, and self-harm on the platform, has been disbanded.
Twitter representatives were scheduled to meet with the council on Monday night. However, multiple members claim that Twitter emailed the group announcing its dissolution shortly before the meeting.
Fearing retaliation, the council members who provided The Associated Press with images of the Twitter email spoke on condition of anonymity. The email said Twitter was "reexamining how best to bring outside bits of knowledge" and the chamber is "not the most ideal construction to do this."
The email, which was signed "Twitter," stated, "Our work to make Twitter a safe and informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before. We will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal."
The volunteer group offered expertise and direction on how Twitter could better combat hate, harassment, and other harms; however, they lacked authority to make decisions and did not look into specific content disputes. Musk initially stated that he would establish a new "content moderation council" to assist in major decisions shortly after acquiring Twitter for $44 billion at the end of October. However, he later changed his mind
Alex Holmes, a member of Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, tweeted, "The Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who, over many years, gave up their time when consulted by Twitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online safety and harm issues."
In an email that confirmed the meeting with the council on Thursday, Twitter, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, promised an "open conversation and Q&A" with staff members, including Ella Irwin, the company's new head of trust and safety.
"Contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter's users are on the decline," said the public statement posted on Twitter on the same day that three council members announced their resignations.
After, Musk intensified his criticism of the former council members and Twitter's previous leadership for allegedly failing to do enough to stop.
It is a crime that they waited so long to take action against child exploitation! Musk tweeted.
Concerned by the increasing number of attacks on the council, some remaining members emailed Twitter earlier on Monday requesting that the company stop misrepresenting the council's role. The email stated that Twitter leaders' false accusations were "endangering current and former Council members."
One of the advisory groups of the Trust and Safety Council actually dealt with child exploitation. The R-A T-I Foundation, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Youth Adult Survivors & Kin in Need were among these.
Patricia C-A R T-E S, a former employee of Twitter whose position it was to establish the council in 2016, stated on Monday that the council's dissolution "means there's no more checks and balances." According to C-A R T-E S, the company wanted to bring experts from all over the world to the council so that they could voice concerns about how new Twitter products or policies might affect their communities.
She said that was in contrast to Musk's current practice, which is to poll his Twitter followers before changing a policy that changes how content is moderated. She stated, "He really doesn't care as much about what experts think"
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