Twitter says job cuts won’t impact core content moderation

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter, which has fired about half of its workforce under Elon Musk along with axing key content moderation teams right before the US midterm elections, said that its "core moderation capabilities" are still in place.

Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity, said in a tweet thread that while the company said goodbye to incredibly talented friends and colleagues, "our core moderation capabilities remain in place".

"The reduction in force affected approximately 15 per cent of our Trust & Safety organisation (as opposed to approximately 50 per cent cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact," Roth informed.

Last week, Twitter restricted access to its internal tools for some users, including some members of Roth's team, for security reasons.

"Most of the 2,000+ content moderators working on front-line review were not impacted, and access will be fully restored in the coming days," he added.

Roth said that more than 80 per cent of Twitter's incoming content moderation volume was completely unaffected by this access change.

"The daily volume of moderation actions we take stayed steady through this period," he said.

However, Twitter has had to "deprioritise a few workflows" like helping with lost password requests and "some" suspension appeals.

Twitter is "working to get these back online in the days to come".

Content moderation on Twitter remains a top concern as US midterm elections approaches next week.