As of this past Monday morning, Elon Musk, as the new CEO of Twitter, made himself “the sole director” of the social media platform in the wake of fully disbanding the board of directors for the social media titan.
This new move took effect as part of a securities filing that claimed that the various members of the board, which included a few recently cut top executives, were not long the companies directors “in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement,” as reported by CNN.
Additionally, Musk made sure to take action to put a hard limit on the ability of the company’s employees to censor and heavily moderate the content of the platform or enforce the heavily criticized rules for the platform.
It was reported by Bloomberg News that “most” of the Trust and Safety team for Twitter is “unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech,” except for in fairly extreme circumstances in which the posts could result in severe real-world harm without action being taken.
This team has not been able to access a particular dashboard tool that they utilize to create and toss out enforcement actions such as locking users out of their own accounts or even outright banning their accounts due to various violations, things which many critics say are utilized as weapons to censor and silence that is extremely disproportionately targeting conservatives.
Another report coming from Bloomberg News claimed that Musk has asked his team to look over the platform’s “hateful conduct policy,” most notably a section concerning the penalizing the platform’s users for “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
Priamry reports seem to state that Musk was slated to toss out well over 75% of the actual workforce for Twitter. He kicked off his new tenure with the company by cutting the legal team and the company’s top executives. Reports indicate later made the claim that he was planning to remove almost half of the company’s 7,500 person workforce. However, newer report seem to indicate that the number of employees who are in danger of being fire has dropped down to a much lower level at 25%.
All of this takes place as Musk is slated to begin charging the userbase a rate of roughly $20 a month to maintain their verification status on the platform in what is thought to be a brand new deal the company will offer.
The Verge officially reported that the “directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users,” as gathered from various other documents and sources.
WHile the price point could end up changing, the plan is to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue plan.
Additionally, anyone who already sports a verified account will be given a total of 90 days to register for the new program before they lose their verification status as a whole.
