Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council is no more, an email sent to its members who remained after last week’s resignations reveals.
The email came on Monday, and now the about page for the former Council has also been removed.
On Friday, three members of the council resigned, citing disagreements with Elon Musk over the “safety and well-being” of Twitter users under his ownership.
Musk replied to a thread started by Anne Collier, one of the members who resigned from the now-dissolved body, by tweeting, “It is a crime that they [the Council] refused to take action on child exploitation for years!”
The writing was on the wall regarding the future of this group there and then. The Council was formed in 2016, bringing together several organizations, academics, and others who were given advisory roles regarding Twitter’s rules, products, and programs.
The email announcing its end said that Twitter’s new phase requires reevaluating how it incorporates “external insights” into its products and policy, adding that the Trust and Safety Council is “not the best structure to do this.”
The message also promises that the work on improving Twitter’s status as a safe and informative place will now accelerate and be more aggressive “than ever before.”
According to the announcement about the Council’s dissolution, Twitter will continue to “welcome ideas” coming from its members.
“We will also continue to explore opportunities to provide focused and timely input into our work, whether through bilateral or small group meetings,” the email reads.
Last Friday, Lesley Podesta, Eirliani A. Rahman, and Anne Collier announced they were stepping down from the Council, citing “research evidence” which allegedly proves that despite Musk’s claims, “the safety and well-being of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”
