Can Twitter’s toxic content and bots team rebrand fix major flaws? After a whistleblower accused Twitter of misleading regulators about lax cybersecurity defences and negligence regarding bots and disinformation accounts, the company responded with an internal reshuffle.
According to a staff memo obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, Twitter will combine teams that work on reducing toxic content and spam bots.
It will combine its health experienced team, which works to reduce misinformation and harmful content, with its service team, which is in charge of reviewing user-reported profiles and removing spam accounts.
Employees, however, complain that the loss of high-profile executives and understaffed teams makes it impossible to solve such complex and long-term problems.
According to the email to employees, the new group will be called “Health Products and Services (HPS).” Ella Irwin, the company’s vice president of product for health and Twitter service, will lead the HPS team.
Can Twitter’s toxic content and bots team rebrand fix major flaws?
“We need teams to focus on specific problems, working as one team and no longer operating in silos,” Irwin wrote in an email to employees, adding that the team will “ruthlessly prioritise” its projects.
The formation of the HPS team is more significant because the company is facing multiple challenges.
Peiter Mudge Zatko, a former security head and well-known hacker, has accused the corporation of misleading federal regulators about its defences against hackers and spam accounts.
Twitter is suing Tesla Inc’s CEO, Elon Musk, as the world’s richest man attempts to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the company, accusing it of withholding information on how it calculates spam accounts.
‘Changes do not account for staff departures’
The move also comes as high-ranking executives have left the company in recent months, including Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck, who oversaw consumer products and revenue.
According to two employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity, teams responsible for reducing harmful or toxic content have recently been hit hard by staff departures. At least one current employee stated that the reorganisation had no discernible influence on their work.
A former Twitter security employee expressed scepticism that the reshuffle would result in improvements because the company’s problems with spam accounts have historically run deeper than one team can manage on its own. He refused to be identified for fear of jeopardising future work possibilities.
Twitter claimed on Tuesday that Zatko’s charges were intended to garner attention and cause harm to the company and that it stands by its statements about spam and bot accounts.
