Twitter is not safe under its new owner Elon Musk, according to the platform’s former trust and safety chief.
Yoel Roth resigned from the social networking site earlier this month and said the site had begun to diverge from its policy of adhering to public availability to a decision that Mr. Musk would make alone.
“One of my limitations is that if Twitter starts to be governed by authoritarian decree rather than policy … I don’t have to play my part anymore and do what I do.”
Mr Ross said in a New York Times opinion piece shortly after his resignation that many of the changes Mr Musk had made were “sudden and shocking to employees and users alike”.
Tesla billionaire laid off about half of the company’s 8,000 employees – The move hit 15% of staff in the trust and safety sector, Mr Ross tweeted at the time.
Mr Musk’s ill-fated attempt to reshape Twitter’s verification system to allow users to pay for verification ticks on their accounts – something Mr Ross said he did despite warnings and advice from the trust and safety team.
Before long, the platform became a playground for spammers posing as companies like Nestle and Lockheed Martin.
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Mr Ross also defended Twitter’s decision to suspend Donald Trump following riots at the US Capitol on January 6 last year, citing the risk of further incitement to violence.
“We’ve seen the clearest example of things moving from online to offline,” he said.
“We saw people die at the Capitol.”
but mr musk Tweeted on Nov. 19 that Trump’s account would be reinstatedafter a surprising Twitter poll, a slim majority voted in favor of the move.