Science

    Musk cuts Twitter human rights, accessibility, AI ethics, and curation teams

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    The Hawk
    November5/ 2022
    Last Updated:

    New Delhi (The Hawk): In an effort to drastically reduce Twitter's employment by half, Elon Musk has eliminated entire departments, with the human rights, accessibility, AI ethics and curation, and communications teams taking the worst blow.

    The company's human rights staff was terminated on Friday, according to a post by former Twitter Human Rights Counsel Shannon Raj Singh.

    In addition to activists, journalists, and victims of armed conflicts like the one in Ukraine, the team worked to defend users who were subjected to human rights violations wherever in the world.

    Singh wrote on Twitter, "Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been fired from the firm."

    In order to safeguard those in danger during international conflicts and crises, such as those in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, we worked to apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights.

    The Twitter Accessibility Experience Team is no longer in existence.

    "Despite having a lot more to do, we worked hard! Few individuals have ever had the chance to create a platform as significant and international as Twitter accessible, but we knew what we were doing, according to Gerard Cohen, a former technical manager for accessibility at Twitter.

    The layoffs were severe in Twitter's worldwide communications team. More than 50% of the communications team in India was let go.

    Twitter is so unique, wrote Julie Steele, a former director of internal communications at the company. I'm departing after 4 years with the richest experiences I could have ever imagined, as well as unbreakable friendships with so many Tweeps. Knowing that I gave it everything I had, I can hold my head high.

    It's been an honour and a privilege to have served the internal (and occasionally public) dialogue at Twitter, wrote Colette Zakarian, a former Twitter spokesperson. Every day, I have seen my team give their all to put the needs of the people first.

    For its exploratory work in ethical AI and algorithmic transparency, Musk disbanded the META team, which was known internally.

    Along with the team's engineers and other members, the team's director, Rumman Chowdhury, was fired.

    The team is no longer together, as former senior engineering manager Joan Deitchman tweeted. the group that investigated and promoted algorithmic choice and transparency. the group looking into algorithmic amplification. the group that created and developed moral AI tools and processes. Everything is gone.

    (Inputs from Agencies)