Twitter lays off

staff, Musk
blames activists
for ad revenue
drop
Agenda

•
Twitter Inc laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible
for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about
content moderation.

Tweets by staff of the social media company said teams responsible for communications, content
curation, human rights and machine learning ethics were among those gutted, as were some
product and engineering teams.

The move caps a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company's future under new owner
Elon Musk, the world's richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a
"massive drop in revenue" from the advertiser retreat.

Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter's top
advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation - concerns heightened ahead of
potential pivotal congressional elections on Tuesday.

After the layoffs, the groups said they were escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull
their Twitter ads globally.
• What is going on with Twitter?
• What can be the causes behind advertisers
pulling out of Twitter?
• What is wrong with Twitter’s content
moderation?
• Who has been laid off by Twitter?
• In your opinion, why would Twitter gut people
from the human rights and ethics teams?
• What changes happened over a week after
Elon Musk took over Twitter?
• How does Elon Musk view the issues of content
moderation?
• Will laying off employees increase revenue?
Why or why not?
"Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day," Musk tweeted of
the layoffs, adding that everyone affected was offered three months of severance pay.

The company was silent about the depth of the cuts until late in the day, when head of safety
and integrity Yoel Roth tweeted confirmation of internal plans, seen by Reuters earlier in the
week, projecting the layoffs would affect about 3,700 people, or 50% of the staff.

Among those let go were 784 employees from the company's San Francisco headquarters and
199 in San Jose and Los Angeles, according to filings to California's employment authority.

Roth said the reductions hit about 15% of his team, which is responsible for preventing the
spread of misinformation and other harmful content, and that the company's "core moderation
capabilities" remained in place.

Musk endorsed the safety executive last week, citing his "high integrity" after Roth was called
out over tweets critical of former President Donald Trump years earlier.

Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a
"hellscape."
• Unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is
losing over $4M/day. Do you agree? Why or why not?
• How did Yoel Roth confirm the massive internal
layoffs at Twitter?
• What are your thoughts on cutting 3,700 people
or 50% of the staff?
• How did Roth further confirm the percentage
layoffs in his team?
• In your opinion, what are the consequences of
misinformation and harmful content on social
media?
• How can social media influence society?
• What did Musk promise to restore in the
company?
• In your opinion, why does he value free speech?
IN-DEPTH
ANALYSIS
President Joe Biden said on Friday that Musk had purchased a social media
platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.

"And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit
that sends - that spews lies all across the world... There’s no editors anymore in
America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what
is at stake?"
Major advertisers have expressed
apprehension about Musk's takeover for
months.

Brands including General Motors Co

(GM.N) and General Mills Inc (GIS.N) have
said they stopped advertising on Twitter
while awaiting information about the new
direction of the platform.
Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content
moderation and done "everything we could" to appease the
groups. Speaking at an investors conference in New York on
Friday, Musk called the activist pressure "an attack on the First
Amendment."

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT
The email notifying staff about layoffs was the first communication Twitter workers received from the company's leadership
after Musk took over last week. It was signed only by "Twitter," without naming Musk or any other executives.

Dozens of staffers tweeted they had lost access to work email and Slack channels overnight before receiving an official layoff
notice on Friday morning, prompting an outpouring of laments by current and former employees on the platform they had
built.
They shared blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the
hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees
had used for years to celebrate the company's work culture.

Twitter's curation team, which was responsible for "highlighting and contextualizing the best
events and stories that unfold on Twitter," had been axed, employees wrote.

Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter's acting head of human rights, tweeted that
the entire human rights team at the company had been sacked.
Another team that focused on research into how Twitter
employed machine learning and algorithms, an issue that was a
priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet
from a former senior manager at Twitter.

Senior executives including vice president of engineering

Arnaud Weber said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday:
"Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I'm proud of
what we accomplished."
Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service
that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the
handle "SillyRobin" who had indicated they were laid off,
quote-tweeted a previous Musk tweet saying Twitter Blue
would include "paywall bypass" for certain publishers.

"Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this," the

employee said.
DOORS LOCKED
Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be
temporarily closed and badge access suspended "to help
ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems
and customer data."

Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday,

with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence
Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.

A receptionist at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters said a

few people had trickled in and were working in the floors
above despite the notice to stay away.
A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by several
employees, who argued the company was conducting mass
layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice,
in violation of federal and California law.

The lawsuit asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an

order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off
to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of
the case.
THE QUESTIONS
THAT REMAIN
• How will you describe your ideal boss?
• What kind of workplace do you aspire to
be part of?
• What factors do you consider in choosing
a career?
• Who most likely influences your ideas
about your career options?
• In what ways can employees create a
positive work environment?