Twitter on Friday, as part of new director Elon Musk’s plans, started laying off hundreds of employees in departments across the company. As per media reports, key Twitter teams including Human Rights, Accessibility, Al Ethics, and Curation have been axed so far by the new Twitter owner. Elon Musk has defended his decision of laying off employees from Twitter and said there was no choice as the microblogging site is losing over $4 million daily.
Now, many fired employees have taken to Twitter to post messages to confirm their departure from the company.
Former Twitter Human Rights Counsel Shannon Raj Singh shared that the company’s entire human rights team was eliminated on Friday. She tweeted, “Yesterday 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.”
Twitter’s Accessibility Experience team has also been sacked. The former head of the department Gerard K. Cohen tweeted, “I am officially no longer the Engineering Manager for the Accessibility Experience Team at Twitter.”
In the thread, Cohen also shared his experience of working with his former colleagues. The Accessibility Experience team worked to improve Twitter for people with disabilities.
A former employee at Twitter Communications tweeted, “Twitter is so special. After 4 yrs, I’m leaving with the fullest experiences I never imagined, and unbreakable bonds with so many Tweeps. My head is held high, knowing I gave it my absolute all.@TwitterComms: We have so much to be proud of. Time to fly even higher! #OneTeam.”
According to a TechCrunch report, the Curation team was also axed. The Curation team curated the Moments tab, programmed the Trending Topics section, provided context on those topics and also handled live events. The team also worked to fight misinformation on the platform.
Amid wide criticism of how layoffs have been carried out within a week of acquisition Musk tweeted, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required (sic),” Musk tweeted.
Within a week of the takeover, Musk has fired three top executives of Twitter – CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.