Twitter disbands Trust and Safety Council

Twitter has dissolved the Council of Trust and Security — a group of volunteer professionals that was formed in 2016 and advises the social media platform on various solutions․

An email sent to board members said that as Twitter moves into a new phase, the company is trying to figure out how best to organize a process for providing third-party advisory opinions on their product and policy development work, Reuters reported.

"As part of this process, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this," the letter to board members read.

The work to make Twitter a safe and informative place will continue even faster and more persistently than ever before, the Twitter letter said, adding that Twitter will continue to welcome ideas on how to achieve that goal.

According to the Trust and Security Council website, the council is made up of various civil rights organizations, academics and other bodies that advocate for security and advise Twitter when developing products, programs and policies.

The Trust and Security Council's Twitter account has since been deleted. According to the Washington Post, board members received a letter dissolving the board shortly before meeting with company executives via Zoom.

Three board members resigned last week, citing concerns about Twitter user safety. "It is clear from research evidence that, contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter's users are on the decline," board member Anne Collier wrote on Twitter.

Musk responded to Collier by accusing board members of refusing to take action against child exploitation, which former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey called "lies."

It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022

Since Elon Musk's arrival, Twitter's staff has been more than halved. Musk fired half of his staff almost immediately after becoming CEO. Later he fired engineers who publicly criticized him. After a while, many of the company's employees began to quit voluntarily when Musk sent them an ultimatum demanding that they either work "long hours and high intensity" or be fired. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, the company had about 7,500 employees. Now there are about 2,700 left.