Twitter Appears to Disband Its Trust and Safety Council

• Twitter seemed to disband its Trust and Safety Council in an abrupt Monday email.
• The group was made up of several people and organizations that advocated for safety on the site.
• The move comes amid a recently-reported uptick in hate speech on the site.

Twitter disbanded its Trust and Safety Council in the latest development in Elon Musk’s ongoing and turbulent takeover.

On Monday, the company sent a memo to remaining members of the council announcing the dissolution of the group, with the subject line “Thank you,” according to The Washington Post. 

In a copy of the email obtained by tech journalist Avi Asher-Schapiro, the company said it is “reevaluating” how best to bring outside insights into its product and policy work as Twitter moves into “a new phase.” As part of that process, the company said it decided that the Trust and Safety Council is “not the best structure to do this.”

The council, which was formed in 2016, was made up of several dozen people and independent organizations, including civil rights leaders and academics that helped “advocate for safety” on the site. Many of the people involved were volunteers.

As of Monday night, Twitter appeared to have taken down the council’s webpage on its website. Neither Musk nor Twitter immediately responded to Insider’s request for comment.

The email announcing the council’s end came less than an hour before members of the group were set to meet with top Twitter executives via Zoom about recent happenings at the company, people familiar with the matter told The Post. 

“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” the email said.

Musk last month seemed to backtrack after previously suggesting the creation of a content moderation council for the site. 

The Monday dissolution comes just three days after three members of the Trust and Safety Council publicly quit, citing a decline in the “safety and wellbeing” of Twitter’s users in the less than two months since Musk took over.

Research from two watchdogs, the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Anti-Defamation League, recently reported a sharp uptick in hate speech, including racist and homophobic slurs, as well as antisemitic posts on the site.