San Francisco: Stating that the safety and well-being of Twitter users are declining, three of the platform's Trust and Safety Council resigned. Their claims contradict CEO Elon Musk's claims of safety assurances, IANS reported.
The resigned members were Eirliani Abdul Rahman, Anne Collier and Lesley Podesta, who monitored the microblogging platform's digital safety and blamed Musk's 'freedom of expression' approach.
In a letter they wrote and posted on netfamilynews.org, they said, "The question has been on our minds: Should Musk be allowed to define digital safety as he has freedom of expression? Our answer is a categorical 'no'."
"We fear a two-tiered Twitter: one for those who can pay and reap the benefits, and another one for those who cannot. This, we fear, will take away the credibility of the system and the beauty of Twitter," the letter read.
Meanwhile, Musk replied, "It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!" The reply was after a follower referenced a New York Post story on Twitter allegedly not removing child pornography from the site.
The letter further read, "We know that, even after the resignations and dismissals of thousands of employees, there are people working at Twitter who care about reducing hate speech and protecting users on the platform."
"Despite a lack of acknowledgement on the part of Twitter's new ownership, we would like to acknowledge the hard work of all members of its Trust and Safety Council over the past six years."
Rahman, one of them, said that derogatory usage against Black Americans and gay men had jumped 195 per cent and 58 per cent, respectively after Musk took over the platform.
She said, "Antisemitic posts have soared more than 61 per cent in the two weeks after Musk's acquisition of Twitter. Another red line for me was when previously banned accounts, such as those on the far right, and those who had incited others to violence, such as the US President Donald Trump's, were reinstated."
Rahman was the first female representative from Asia and had served on the Council's Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Prevention advisory group.
Rahman and Collier have been members of Twitter's Trust & Safety Council since its inception in 2016.