Sydney: Elon Musk’s ex More than 1,000 staff globally have been laid off from teams responsible for blocking abusive content online, according to new data released on Thursday by Australia’s online watchdog.
Australia’s eSafety Commission said these “deep cuts” and the reinstatement of thousands of banned accounts had created a “perfect storm” for the spread of harmful content.
The regulator has focused in recent months on x — formerly known as Twitter –I was saying earlier muskThe takeover coincided with an increase in “toxicity and hatred” on the platform.
Using Australia’s unprecedented Online Safety Act, the eSafety Commission has obtained detailed descriptions of the software engineers, content moderators and other security staff working at X.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, said this is the first time these figures have been made public.
They showed that 1,213 specialist “trust and security staff”, including contractors, had left X since it was acquired by Musk in October 2022.
It consisted of 80 percent of software engineers focusing on “trust and security issues,” Inman Grant said.
“To remove 80 percent of these expert engineers, it would be like Volvo – known for its safety standards – eliminating all of its designers or engineers,” he told AFP.
“You have a perfect storm. You’re drastically reducing your security, and bringing repeat violators back onto the platform.”
Australia has led a global effort to regulate social media, forcing tech companies to outline how they are dealing with issues such as hate speech and child sexual exploitation.
But efforts to exercise these powers are sometimes met with indifference.
In October last year, the eSafety Commission fined Axe Aus$610,500 (US$388,000), saying it failed to show how it was cracking down on child pornography.
But before launching ongoing legal action to overturn this, X ignored the deadline to pay the fine.
X did not respond to AFP’s request for comment, instead sending an automated response that read “Busy right now, please check back later”.
Australia’s eSafety Commission said these “deep cuts” and the reinstatement of thousands of banned accounts had created a “perfect storm” for the spread of harmful content.
The regulator has focused in recent months on x — formerly known as Twitter –I was saying earlier muskThe takeover coincided with an increase in “toxicity and hatred” on the platform.
Using Australia’s unprecedented Online Safety Act, the eSafety Commission has obtained detailed descriptions of the software engineers, content moderators and other security staff working at X.
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, a former Twitter employee, said this is the first time these figures have been made public.
They showed that 1,213 specialist “trust and security staff”, including contractors, had left X since it was acquired by Musk in October 2022.
It consisted of 80 percent of software engineers focusing on “trust and security issues,” Inman Grant said.
“To remove 80 percent of these expert engineers, it would be like Volvo – known for its safety standards – eliminating all of its designers or engineers,” he told AFP.
“You have a perfect storm. You’re drastically reducing your security, and bringing repeat violators back onto the platform.”
Australia has led a global effort to regulate social media, forcing tech companies to outline how they are dealing with issues such as hate speech and child sexual exploitation.
But efforts to exercise these powers are sometimes met with indifference.
In October last year, the eSafety Commission fined Axe Aus$610,500 (US$388,000), saying it failed to show how it was cracking down on child pornography.
But before launching ongoing legal action to overturn this, X ignored the deadline to pay the fine.
X did not respond to AFP’s request for comment, instead sending an automated response that read “Busy right now, please check back later”.
