Elon Musk’s social media firm X, previously Twitter, is slashing greater than half of its group tasked with preventing misinformation tied to elections forward of the 2024 presidential election, in response to a report.
X minimize 4 election integrity staffers, together with the group’s head, primarily based in Eire, UPI reported citing a report from The Data.
The social media platform’s executives informed the group in Dublin that “having integrity staff primarily based in Europe wasn’t vital,” the outlet reported, citing three individuals aware of the matter.
The firings imply the group has been minimize to lower than half in North America, the outlet reported.
Musk appeared to verify the report on X Wednesday.
“Oh you imply the ‘Election Integrity’ Crew that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone,” he tweeted.
The corporate had about two dozen staffers dedicated to election integrity earlier than Musk purchased it for $44 billion final yr. Now, there reportedly could be at most six staffers left.
The discount comes after Musk signaled he would beef up the group. The Put up beforehand reported there was a plan to develop X’s so-called “Belief and Security” group to observe disinformation.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino additionally not too long ago informed the Monetary Instances the corporate was planning to develop its security and election groups globally.
X has additionally disabled a characteristic that permit customers report misinformation about elections on the platform, a analysis group mentioned Wednesday, Reuters reported.
After first rolling out the characteristic in 2022 that permit accounts report a publish they thought of politically deceptive, the app eliminated that class from its drop-down menu in all places however the European Union, researcher Reset.Tech Australia mentioned.
Different regarding posts about selling violence or hate speech can nonetheless be reported, the researcher famous.
Musk has downsized X’s workforce by about 80% since he took over.