Twitter Lays Off 50 Percent Of Employees, Elon Musk Blames Civil Rights Activists For Influencing Advertisers

Twitter did mass layoffs because advertisers stopped advertising. (photo: twitter @rnnoweber)

JAKARTA - Twitter has laid off 50% of its employees, on Friday, November 4 in a tweet. But the content moderation capabilities of social media platforms remain. The tweet by the head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, is to reassure users and advertisers of the new policy following the takeover of the company by billionaire Elon Musk.

Yoel Roth also projects the layoffs will affect around 3,700 people, or 50% of the staff. Among those released were 784 employees from the company's headquarters in San Francisco and 199 in San Jose and Los Angeles.

With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.

— Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 4, 2022

Roth said 15% of Twitter employees on the trust and security team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and malicious content, were also laid off. Companywide, these layoffs affected 50% of employees, which is the first confirmation from Twitter of the magnitude of the layoffs.

With the midterm elections in the US just days away, Roth said fighting dangerous misinformation remains a top priority for them.

"Once again, to be clear, Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains and in no way has changed," Musk tweeted shortly after Roth's own tweet.

Earlier on Friday as reported by Reuters, Musk said Twitter had experienced a "huge drop in revenue," as civil rights groups raised concerns about how layoffs would affect moderation, and pressured top advertisers to withdraw their ad spend.

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022

Big brands like General Mills, United Airlines, Renault, and General Motors as well as other big companies said they had stopped advertising on Twitter.

The move also ends a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company's future under new owner Elon Musk.

After the layoffs, the civil rights group said they were continuing to increase pressure and demanded brands withdraw their Twitter ads globally.

"Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing more than $4 million/day," Musk tweeted about the layoffs. He added that all those affected by the layoffs were offered three months' salary severance pay.

Musk endorsed safety executives last week, citing "high integrity" after Roth was summoned for tweets critical of former President Donald Trump years earlier. Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into "hell."

Biden protests Twitter

US President Joe Biden said last Friday that Musk had bought the social media platform on Twitter that was spewing lies around the world.

"And now what we're all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys clothes shipped - that spit out lies all over the world. No more editors in America. No editors. How can we expect kids to understand what's at stake?" Biden said as quoted by Reuters.

Major advertisers have previously expressed concern about Musk's months-long takeover and its impact on free speech and misinformation on Twitter.

Meanwhile Musk tweeted that his team would not make changes to content moderation and was doing "all we can" to appease groups opposing his acquisition. Speaking at an investor conference in New York last Friday, Musk called the activist pressure an attack on the First Amendment, namely free speech.

Senior executives including vice president of engineering Arnaud Weber said goodbye on Twitter last Friday. "Twitter still has a lot of untapped potential but I'm proud of what we've achieved," Weber tweeted.

After 3 years, my time at Twitter ended. I wanted to thank every Tweeps for making this experience amazing and memorable. Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I'm proud of what we accomplished. Please DM me if I can be of any assistance. #LoveWhereYouWorked

— Arnaud Weber (@rnoweber) November 4, 2022

Employees of Twitter Blue, Musk's backed premium subscription service, were also let go. An employee with the nickname "SillyRobin" indicating they were laid off, quoted Musk's earlier tweet saying that Twitter Blue would include a "paywall bypass" for certain publishers.

"To clarify, he fired the team that worked on this," the employee said.

Twitter Office Is Closed

Twitter said in an email to staff that the office would be temporarily closed and badge access (blue tick) suspended "to help ensure the security of every employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data."

Offices in London and Dublin were deserted last Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, all evidence that Twitter had occupied the building was erased.

A receptionist at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters also said several people had entered and were working upstairs despite notices to stay away.

A class action was filed on Thursday November 4 against Twitter by several employees, who argued that the company carried out mass layoffs without providing the required 60 days' advance notice in violation of federal and California laws.

The lawsuit asks a San Francisco federal court to issue an injunction restricting Twitter from asking laid-off employees to sign documents without informing them of the dependability of the case.