Elon Musk reportedly lays off content moderators in Ireland and Singapore, with Twitter shedding nearly 5,000 of its 7,500 employees

Among those fired at the Elon Musk-owned social media platform are Noor Azhar Bin Ayob, who was recently hired as the site’s integrity manager for the Asia-Pacific region, and Analuisa Dominguez, Twitter’s chief revenue officer, according to Bloomberg. The report added that staff on the platform’s disinformation policy, global appeals and state media teams were also eliminated.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, confirmed to Reuters that Twitter made layoffs on Friday night in its trust and safety team, but did not elaborate: thousands of people who work with content moderation within Trust and Safety and did nothing. It breaks down the work into groups that do it on a daily basis,” he said. Some of the cuts, he said, were in areas that didn’t have the volume to continue to exist or that made sense to consolidate.

Shortly after Elon Musk took over, Twitter laid off almost 50% of its employees, including those on the trust and safety team, the company’s head of security and integrity Yoel Roth acknowledged in a tweet: Yesterday’s reduction in human resources Our Trust & Safety organization cost approx. affected 15% (compared to approximately 50% of company-wide layoffs), with the least impact being front-line moderation of our employees. That’s why Twitter laid off about 3,700 workers in early November as part of Musk’s cost-cutting measure, and hundreds more have since resigned.

Several members of Twitter’s Machine Learning, Ethics, Transparency and Accountability (META) team, including its former leader, tweeted that they are no longer with the business. At least one of the former employees suggested that the entire team should be disbanded.

Through tweets, several members of the META team said they were affected by the layoffs. Rumman Chowdhury, the head of META, posted a screenshot from his Twitter account showing that he had been kicked out: “Has it started yet? Happy layoff day! Rumman Chowdhury, who led a number of transparency initiatives within the company, including the launch of a first-of-its-kind algorithmically biased prize challenge, said: the beginning of this site’s decline.

Other former members of the META team also said they were fired, with former senior engineering manager Joan Deitchman saying the team no longer exists.

For his part, Elon Musk tried to justify the decision to part with so many employees: when it comes to the reduction of Twitter, unfortunately, there is no other choice when the company loses more than 4 million dollars a day. All those released were offered 3 months’ severance pay, 50% more than the legal requirement.

Many complaints are coming in to condemn the layoffs

Twitter to target disproportionately fired women

The company faced a lawsuit last month that claimed the social media company disproportionately targeted workers in layoffs. A proposed class action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco in early December says Elon Musk fired 57% of its female employees and 47% of its male employees after taking over Twitter.

According to the complaint, the gender disparity was most pronounced in engineering positions, where 63% of women lost their jobs compared to 48% of men. The lawsuit filed by two women fired by Twitter in December accuses the company of violating federal and California laws prohibiting gender discrimination in the workplace.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that after Musk acquired the company, women were targeted, regardless of their talents and contributions. Liss-Riordan represents current and former Twitter employees in three other lawsuits pending in the same court since last month.

Those cases include a variety of allegations, including that Twitter terminated employees and contractors without the notice required by law and failed to pay promised severance pay, and that Musk fired disabled workers after refusing to quit, allowing remote work and urging workers to be tougher.

At least three employees have filed separate complaints against Twitter with the US National Labor Relations Board, alleging retaliation for advocating for better working conditions.

Twitter denied wrongdoing in the lawsuit over the notice and did not respond to other complaints.

Twitter is facing a class-action lawsuit for mass layoffs without giving 60 days notice as required by law.

Twitter began firing on 1, the complaint states^er In November, when he fired Emmanuel Cornet, the lead plaintiff in the suit, without providing him with proper written notice.

This violates US and California law. The WARNING Act states that includes a sale of a company that results in mass layoffs or plant closings — in other words, the WARNING Act applies to layoffs at Twitter regardless of how the matter is resolved. The other plaintiffs — Justine De Caires, Jessica Pan and Grae Kindel — said they were fired on Thursday, Nov. 3, when their accounts were closed. The lawsuit further adds that the California Department of Employment Development did not receive notice of the massive layoffs that began in early November.

Although they have already lost their jobs, the complaint alleges that the five plaintiffs are “deeply concerned that Twitter will proceed with these layoffs without providing proper notice.” The plaintiffs are asking that Twitter and its owner be forced to comply with federal and California NOTICE laws, both of which require a mandatory 60-day notice period before mass layoffs. The plaintiffs are also seeking compensatory damages and interest, including back wages and costs. Analysts say these provisions are not a major requirement of the WARNING Act.

They will be subject to penalties imposed by the US Department of Labor for violations of the law. The latter provision states that any company found guilty of violating the NOTICE Act is liable to each employee for an amount including back wages and benefits for up to 60 days of the violation. That’s a lot of money, and it’s going to cost a lot of employees if Musk can’t get out of it — just add the mountain of debt he and his financiers incurred on the acquisition, which surely bodes well for the future of private public space. Internet.

At the same time, the complaint reminds the court that Musk has previously fired employees without notice, citing Tesla layoffs. Tesla, whose largest shareholder is Musk, was sued by former employees after massive layoffs in June 2022. In that case, Musk ordered Tesla executives to stop all hiring and prepare for layoffs. Workers were never notified, and hundreds of workers were reportedly laid off weeks later. Attorneys representing two Tesla employees have filed a lawsuit against Tesla for violating the WARNING Act.

In 2014, SpaceX employees filed a lawsuit over mass layoffs at the company’s Hawthorne, California factory. SpaceX settled the WARNING lawsuit in 2016 with a $4 million payment split among 4,100 employees. The new lawsuit against Twitter alleges that Musk agreed to keep compensation and employee benefits unchanged under the terms of the buyout agreement. This means that laid-off employees must receive 60 days’ salary and the cash value of the shares they were due to receive within three months of their last employment with the company.

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world [ndlr. ce qui n’est plus le cas depuis un petit moment dj], announced that he thought it was “pointless” to comply with federal labor laws. We filed this federal complaint to hold Twitter accountable under our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly waiving their rights. Employees should be very careful before signing what is offered to them. “We are prepared to file a complaint on behalf of Twitter employees who were fired without notice or severance,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, one of the attorneys filing the complaint.

Separately, it said, “We are investigating whether Twitter is trying to avoid its obligation to pay stock options it owes by laying off employees now.” Critics say the company’s layoff process was chaotic and cold-blooded. Instead of being notified in person, Twitter employees were told they would receive an email at 9 a.m. Friday with an update on their employment status. If they still had a job, the email would arrive in their inbox. Otherwise, they will receive a private email, and access to internal systems will be cut off.

Source: Bloomberg

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