{"id":507246,"date":"2022-11-06T15:20:01","date_gmt":"2022-11-06T12:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/twitter-layoffs-before-us-midterms-fuel-misinformation-concerns\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T15:20:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T12:20:01","slug":"twitter-layoffs-before-us-midterms-fuel-misinformation-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/twitter-layoffs-before-us-midterms-fuel-misinformation-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"#Twitter layoffs before US midterms fuel misinformation concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2404b1e364a\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a2404b1e364a\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/twitter-layoffs-before-us-midterms-fuel-misinformation-concerns\/#%E2%80%9CTwitter_layoffs_before_US_midterms_fuel_misinformation_concerns%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;Twitter layoffs before US midterms fuel misinformation concerns&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CTwitter_layoffs_before_US_midterms_fuel_misinformation_concerns%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;Twitter layoffs before US midterms fuel misinformation concerns&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n<div class=\"article-gallery lightGallery\">\n<div data-thumb=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/tmb\/2022\/mass-layoffs-at-twitte.jpg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/2022\/mass-layoffs-at-twitte.jpg\" data-sub-html=\"Mass layoffs at Twitter came after billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company.\">\n<figure class=\"article-img\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scx1.b-cdn.net\/csz\/news\/800a\/2022\/mass-layoffs-at-twitte.jpg\" alt=\"Mass layoffs at Twitter came after billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company\" title=\"Mass layoffs at Twitter came after billionaire Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company.\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\"\/><figcaption class=\"text-darken text-low-up text-truncate-js text-truncate mt-3\">\n                Mass layoffs at <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a> came after billionaire Elon Musk&#8217;s $44 billion takeover of the company.<br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Twitter&#8217;s new owner Elon Musk has pledged the platform will not devolve into a &#8220;free-for-all hellscape,&#8221; but experts warn that mass layoffs may deeply impair the social network&#8217;s ability to curb misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>                                                                                Twitter on Friday fired roughly half of its 7,500-strong workforce, only days before next week&#8217;s midterm elections in the United States, when a spike in fake content is expected across social media.<\/p>\n<p>The cuts, which come after Musk&#8217;s blockbuster $44 million buyout of the company, hit multiple divisions, including trust and safety teams that manage content moderation as well as engineering and machine learning, US reports said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would be real careful on this platform in the coming days&#8230; about what you retweet, who you follow, and even your own sense of what&#8217;s going on,&#8221; said Kate Starbird, a disinformation researcher and assistant professor at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Starbird warned in her own Twitter post of an increased risk of &#8220;impersonation&#8221; attempts, &#8220;coordinated disinformation by manipulators&#8221; and &#8220;hoaxes that attempt to get you to spread falsehoods.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jessica Gonzalez, co-chief executive officer at the nonpartisan group Free Press, said she was concerned that Twitter&#8217;s content-moderation efforts could potentially slacken prior to the election, &#8220;when we know social media goes off the rails to misinform, intimidate and harm voters of color.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Twitter was already a hellscape before Musk took over, and his actions&#8230; will only make it worse,&#8221; said Gonzalez.<\/p>\n<p>Yoel Roth, Twitter&#8217;s head of safety and integrity, sought to soothe those concerns, saying the platform&#8217;s front-line moderation staff were least impacted by the cuts and combating harmful misinformation during the midterms was a &#8220;top priority.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While we said goodbye to incredibly talented friends and colleagues&#8230; our core moderation capabilities remain in place,&#8221; Roth tweeted.<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8216;Deeply troubling&#8217;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Free Press is part of a coalition of more than 60 civil society groups that on Friday called on advertisers to boycott the platform until it committed to being a &#8220;safe place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Members of the coalition met with Musk earlier this week after academic studies reported a dramatic increase in hate speech, Nazi memes and racist slurs after his acquisition of the company.<\/p>\n<p>One study by Montclair State University found that Twitter&#8217;s acquisition by Musk, a self-professed free-speech absolutist, had &#8220;created the perception by extremist users that content restrictions would be alleviated.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We  met with Elon Musk earlier this week to express our profound concerns about some of his plans and the spike in toxic content after his acquisition,&#8221; said the coalition, which uses the hashtag &#8220;Stop Toxic Twitter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Since that time, hate and disinformation have continued to proliferate, and Musk has taken actions that make us fear that the worst is yet to come,&#8221; the group said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>But Musk rejected that assessment, tweeting that &#8220;we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms,&#8221; though he offered up no data to back up this assertion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be crystal clear, Twitter&#8217;s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged,&#8221; Musk wrote on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Musk had promised to reduce Twitter&#8217;s content restrictions, and since the acquisition has announced plans to create a &#8220;content moderation council&#8221; that will review company policies.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While Musk has publicly committed to transparency, his decision to lay off the staff members dedicated to this work is deeply troubling,&#8221; said Zeve Sanderson, executive director of the New York University&#8217;s Center for Social Media and Politics.<\/p>\n<p>Musk insisted that the layoffs were necessary as the company was losing more than $4 million per day.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter has long struggled to generate profit and has failed to keep pace with Facebook, Instagram and TikTok in gaining new users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-main__note mt-4\">\n                                                \u00a9 2022 AFP<\/p>\n<p>                                        <!-- print only --><\/p>\n<div class=\"d-none d-print-block\">\n<p>                                                 <strong>Citation<\/strong>:<br \/>\n                                                 Twitter layoffs before US midterms fuel misinformation concerns (2022, November  6)<br \/>\n                                                 retrieved  6 November 2022<br \/>\n                                                 from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>\/2022-11-twitter-layoffs-midterms-fuel-misinformation.html<\/p>\n<p>                                            This document is subject to copyright. 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Twitter&#8217;s new owner Elon Musk has pledged the platform will not devolve into a &#8220;free-for-all hellscape,&#8221; but experts warn that mass layoffs may deeply impair the social network&#8217;s ability to curb misinformation&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":507247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/2022\/mass-layoffs-at-twitte.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-507246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sciencee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}