Twitter Dissolves Trust and Safety Council

Twitter’s so-called Trust and Safety Council was dissolved on Monday night, an email to its remaining members reveals.

The letter tells staff, “As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work. As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this.

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal. We will also continue to explore opportunities to provide focused and timely input into our work, whether through bilateral or small group meetings.

“Your regional points of contact will remain the best people to contact to escalate concerns, please let us know if you need reconnecting. We are grateful for your engagement, advice and collaboration in recent years and wish you every success in the future. With best wishes, Twitter.

The memo comes after the departure by several members of the council, which was formed in 2016.

Lesley Podesta, along Eirliani A Rahman and Anne Collier, left the company and blamed Musk’s “freedom of expression” style of leadership.

“The question has been on our minds: Should Musk be allowed to define digital safety as he has freedom of expression? Our answer is a categorical ‘no,'” they wrote in a letter posted on netfamilynews.org.

“We fear a two-tiered Twitter: one for those who can pay and reap the benefits, and another one for those who cannot. This, we fear, will take away the credibility of the system and the beauty of Twitter,” they wrote.

Musk replied to the letter in a tweet, adding “It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!”