Twitter's former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, said he believes the social media platform is less safe under the management of new owner and CEO Elon Musk, according to Engadget.
In an event hosted by the Knight Foundation, Roth talks about his thoughts about the platform since he abruptly quit the company this month. According to him, the company no longer had enough staff for safety work.
Yoel Roth Explains the Reason Behind His Resignation
Shortly after the billionaire's $44 billion takeover of the platform, Roth had tweeted that by some measures Twitter's safety had improved.
However, when asked during his interview at the Knight Foundation conference on Tuesday if he still felt the same way, he said "No."
Roth was a veteran at Twitter. He helped steer the social media platform through a number of crucial decisions, one of which is the move to permanently suspend former U.S. President Donald Trump last year.
His departure from the platform further rattled advertisers. Many of the advertisers decided to back away from the platform after Musk laid off half of the staff, including those who are involved with content moderation.
According to Roth, before Musk's takeover, there are about 2,200 people globally who were focused on work related to content moderation. But after the acquisition, he said he did not know the number anymore because the corporate directory had been turned off.
Under its new CEO, Twitter began to stray from its adherence to written and publicly available policies about content decisions. Roth cited this as a reason for his resignation from the company, according to Reuters.
According to Roth, he felt that there was no need for him to play his role at the company if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by policy.
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Yoel Roth Says They Warned Elon Musk of the Problems with Paid Verification
Before the billionaire rolled out the verified check mark to any user who paid $8 a month, Roth and other colleagues tried to warn the CEO of the possible problems in his plan.
However, Musk charged ahead anyway. This leads to a wave of pranksters and impostors posing as major brands, companies, and celebrities. The impostor accounts posted false information. This prompted Twitter to eventually suspend the feature.
According to Roth, there was no explosive confrontation between Musk and him that led to his resignation. The incident about Twitter's paid verification feature was only one of many factors why he decided to leave the company, according to CNN.
In the hour-long interview with Roth, the former head of trust and safety warned that the new CEO's laissez-faire approach to content moderation, combined with his lack of a transparent process of making and enforcing policies on the platform, has made Twitter less safe.
Another reason that makes Twitter less safe is the lack of enough remaining staff who understand that there are malicious actors who are constantly trying to infiltrate the system in ways that cannot be caught by automated algorithms.
With this, he said that Twitter users should monitor if the key safety features such as muting, blocking, and protected tweets are still working. Users should also check for early warning signs that the platform may be breaking down.
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