After a major blunder Sunday on Twitter by the company’s new owner, Elon Musk, he is nevertheless going forward with his plans for major layoffs that could create even more content problems.
Musk has already asked managers for lists of workers to fire in a cost-cutting move at Twitter, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported. Sources have claimed that he plans to cut the 7,500-person workforce by as much as 75% — though Musk denied that to staffers.
The cuts might be closer to 50%, The Washington Post reported Saturday. One of the first to be slashed would likely be the legal, trust and safety division, which oversees content moderation, according to the Post.
The cuts appear likely to boost controversial content, including porn, disinformation and hate speech, as vast numbers of posts would slip by largely unmonitored.
Musk personally became part of the content problem Sunday when he amplified in a post — that he later deleted — a completely baseless conspiracy theory about the vicious home invasion attack Friday on Paul Pelosi, husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk posted. He linked to an article falsely claiming that Pelosi’s attacker was a lover he had met at a bar in the middle of the night. Police have said categorically that Paul Pelosi and assault suspect David DePape had never met before the attack.
Musk is already struggling with taking control at Twitter.
Several users that had been banned for breaking various company rules, including those against racist hate speech and lies, have reportedly been sneaking back onto Twitter since Musk took over Thursday.
Problem content has also skyrocketed. The Network Contagion Research Institute, which analyzes messages across social media platforms, discovered that the use of the racist N-word on Twitter spiked nearly 500% over the 12 hours after Musk bought the company, The Washington Post reported last week.
Musk on Friday tweeted that he wouldn’t make any “major content decisions or account reinstatements” until a new “content moderation council” is convened.
Musk tried to reassure advertisers in a message last week that Twitter will not become a “free-for-all hellscape.” But he appears to be already struggling with that promise.