UN practically begs Elon Musk to ensure Twitter respects human rights – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views

UN practically begs Elon Musk to ensure Twitter respects human rights




UN human rights chief Volker Turk has urged Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk to ensure that respect for human rights is at the heart of the social network after the firing of about half of Twitter’s employees. the company.

The news that Musk fired the platform’s entire human rights team “not, from my perspective, an encouraging start” Turk said in an open letter, reported RTE.

According to RTE, The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said he wrote with “concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it”.

Musk, the world’s richest person, took control of the platform a week ago in a controversial deal.

After completing his gargantuan $44 billion acquisition, Musk quickly decided to dissolve Twitter’s board of directors and fire his CEO and top manager.

Twitter yesterday laid off about half of its 7,500 employees.

“Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution. In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership,” reports RTE.

Turk posted the open letter on Twitter, where he has more than 25,000 followers.

He defined six fundamental principles from a human rights perspective and urged Musk to put them at the forefront of Twitter’s management.

They included protecting freedom of expression and privacy and ensuring transparency.

Musk has vowed to restore free speech by preventing Twitter from plunging into a “hellscape.”

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet that he apologized and took “responsibility for why everyone is in this situation”, adding: “I grew the company size too quickly. I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter,” he posted, reports RTE.

Twitter laid off half its workforce yesterday but said the cuts were minor to the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation as advertisers cut spending amid concerns about content moderation.

Tweets from staff at the social media company said teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics were among those gutted, as were some product and engineering teams.

The move ends a week of chaos and uncertainty over the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” since withdrawing from the service advertiser.

Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that pressured Twitter’s major advertisers to act if it failed to protect content moderation – concerns have mounted ahead of potentially key US congressional elections on Tuesday.

After the firings, the groups said they were increasing their pressure, with brands requesting to remove their ads from Twitter globally.

“Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Mr Musk tweeted of the layoffs, adding that everyone affected was offered three months of severance pay, reported RTE.

The company was silent on the depth of the cuts until the end of the day, when chief security and integrity officer Yoel Roth tweeted confirmation of internal plans that the layoffs would affect approximately 3,700 people, or 50% of staff.

Those released included 784 employees at the company’s San Francisco headquarters and 199 in San Jose and Los Angeles, according to documents filed with the California Employment Authority.

Employees of the Dublin-based tech giant received a notice that they would be laid off, but the government said it has not yet received a mass redundancy notice from Twitter.

US President Joe Biden said Musk bought a social media platform that spews lies around the world.

“And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends – that spews lies all across the world… There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?” Reports RTE.

Major advertisers have raised concerns about the Musk takeover for months.

Twitter Inc today launched a subscription service for (US) $8 per month that includes the blue “verified” badge, offering an updated version on the Apple App Store.

In an update for Apple’s iOS devices, Twitter said those who “sign up now” can receive the coveted blue badge next to their usernames, “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow”, reports RTE.

A blue badge next to a person’s username means that Twitter has confirmed that the account belongs to the person or company claiming it.

According to the iOS notification, other features for subscribers include “media advertising,” the ability to post longer videos to Twitter, and priority ranking for quality content.

Elon Musk pointed to the new service earlier this week in his campaign to monetize the network and make it less reliant on advertising. Twitter is currently free for most users.

Twitter’s update said the new service with verification will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

However, according to a tweet from Esther Crawford, Twitter’s early-stage product executive, the new service is available but has yet to launch.

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