Source: MoonOfAlabama.org
I am amusing myself with watching the panic some people express over Elon Musk’s cleanup of Twitter.
Yesterday 3,700 of its 7,500 workers were fired. That is not good, but the company was losing money and making money is at the core of the capitalist game.
Of interest is what functions were eliminated. The Guardian provides this list:
From news reports and terminated employees’ announcements, here’s what we know so far about the teams that have been hit by the layoffs of thousands of Twitter employees:
- The human rights team has been laid off, according to a now former employee, Shannon Raj Singh, who said the team worked to protect those at risk in global conflicts, including in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.
- The ML (machine learning) Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team is gone, according to a tweet of a laid-off manager.
- The “internet technology team”, which helps keep the site running, has been cut to “a skeleton crew”, two sources told the Times.
- An accessibly experience engineering team has been cut, according to a laid-off engineering manager.
- The curation team, responsible for the Moments feature on Twitter, has also been cut, former employees reported.
- Twitter’s communications department is almost entirely gone, according to the Verge.
- Other areas that have been heavily impacted, the Verge reported, include product trust and safety, policy, research and social good.
What were these teams actually doing?
The human rights team leader gave some hints:
Shannon Raj Singh @ShannonRSingh – 17:58 UTC · Nov 4, 2022Yesterday was my last day at Twitter: the entire Human Rights team has been cut from the company.
I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders.
The human rights team was the ‘regime change’ force on Twitter. It intervened in conflicts where the U.S. preferred a certain side.
Jerri ☮️ @JerusWorld – 20:42 UTC · Nov 4, 2022
Replying to @ShannonRSingh
So you are the one that was censoring pro-Ethiopian and Eritrean voices in order to help the rebel group from Tigray. May Karma pay you back for thousands of lives perished in US/West proxy war.
Shannon Raj Singh had previously meddled in Afghan and other countries’ cultures:…