The European Union has urged Elon Musk to increase the recruitment of human moderators and fact-checkers to evaluate content on Twitter, according to a report from the Financial Times on Monday. The information comes from four sources acquainted with discussions involving Musk, Twitter’s executives, and EU regulators in Brussels.
This request comes at a challenging time for Musk as he attempts to restructure the financially struggling platform he purchased for $44 billion (approximately Rs. 3,37,465 crore) last October. Musk has already laid off more than half of Twitter’s workforce of 7,500, including entire trust and safety teams in several locations, while exploring less expensive methods for tweet monitoring.
The extensive layoffs have raised alarms about Twitter’s ability to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which mandates that online platforms implement specific measures against illegal content before the legislation takes full force in early 2024.
To manage content moderation, Twitter has increasingly relied on automated systems, moving away from many manual review processes. Unlike its larger competitor Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Twitter does not employ fact-checkers, according to the report.
On Tuesday, Musk remarked that Twitter has a “shot” at becoming cash flow-positive in the upcoming quarter, attributing this potential to aggressive cost-cutting measures throughout the company.
During his address at a Morgan Stanley investor conference streamed online, Musk described the platform’s previous monetization efforts as “startlingly” ineffective.
The company has slashed its non-debt expenses from a projected $4.5 billion (around Rs. 36,951 crore) to $1.5 billion (approximately Rs. 12,317 crore) for 2023. This reduction includes a 40 percent decrease in its cloud services costs and the closure of one data center. Thousands of employees have been laid off as part of these efforts.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
