Australia has accused X, formerly Twitter, of reducing its online trust and safety resources, hindering its ability to respond to harmful content. The Australian eSafety Commissioner released a transparency report detailing cuts made to X’s trust and safety teams since it was acquired in October 2022. The report revealed “deep cuts” to safety and public policy staff, with reductions of 30% globally and 45% in the Asia-Pacific region. The number of engineers dedicated to trust and safety was reduced by 80% globally, and content moderators were cut by 52%. X’s Australian outfit lost its entire public policy team. The median time it took X to respond to user reports slowed down by 20% post-acquisition, and even slower for responses to direct messages. Automated tools to detect harmful conduct in direct messages were not used, and hyperlinks to harmful content were not blocked. eSafety believes that over 6,000 previously banned accounts were reinstated, including 194 accounts related to Australia that were previously suspended for hateful conduct. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant expressed concern about the toxic and unsafe environment on social media platforms and criticized X’s slow response to user reports of online hate. The government agency has commenced civil penalty proceedings against X Corp for its alleged failure to comply with online safety rules. Additionally, it has requested a judicial review to be heard in tandem with the civil penalty proceedings. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has also culled most of its X accounts due to trust issues and a need to move to where its audiences are.
Australia criticizes Twitter’s decision to slash its trust and safety engineering team by 80%
