Elon Musk’s X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is reportedly cutting its disinformation and election integrity team in half just weeks after posting new positions to help combat foreign interference. In an Aug. 29 blog post, X announced the expansion of the election integrity team.
“We’re currently expanding our safety and elections teams to focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats,” the blog read.
According to the tech-focused media outlet The Information, four employees in X’s Dublin office were let go, including the head of the team, Aaron Rodericks. The report cites an anonymous source familiar with the situation.
How much of the team has been cut has not been released. Though Musk seemed to confirm the news about cutting half of the election integrity team in a post on X.
“Oh you mean the “Election Integrity” Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone,” Musk said in a post.
This comes as criticism of X’s handling of misinformation on its platform from the European Union grows. According to the EU’s Digital Services Act: Application of the Risk Management Framework to Russian disinformation campaigns, mitigation measures implemented by social media platforms didn’t work in stopping Russian propaganda.
“During the first year of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, social media companies enabled the Kremlin to run a large-scale disinformation campaign targeting the European Union and its allies, reaching an aggregate audience of at least 165 million and generating at least 16 billion views,” the report read. “Preliminary analysis suggests that the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023, driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards.”
On Wednesday, Sept. 27, the Deputy Executive Director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project, Kyle Morse, said ever since Musk took the helm, the social media platform has been a place where disinformation and hate have lived.
“Since taking charge of X, Elon Musk has used the platform to foment antisemitism, hate speech, and disinformation — playing into the hands of bad actors like Russia, China, and Iran. Decimating their election integrity team — on top of last year’s firings — means that X will continue to be a toxic hellscape that people and advertisers should avoid,” Morse said.