As Twitter continues to combat misinformation on the platform, the company is reportedly losing a key executive in charge of content moderation.
Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, tells Reuters that she resigned from the company, hours after Irwin’s company Slack account was quietly shut down, according to Fortune.
Irwin took over the trust and safety job after the previous head, Yoel Roth, left the position in November after Musk’s acquisition of the social media company. In Roth’s case, he resigned, citing Musk’s efforts to dismantle Twitter’s existing content moderation approach.
It's unclear why Irwin resigned, but she departed as owner Elon Musk was fielding complaints from The Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet, about Twitter limiting the reach of its controversial film, What’s a Woman?, which discusses transgender issues.
The Daily Wire says Twitter restricted the film from being circulated on the social media platform because it contained “hateful conduct” and “misgendering.” In response, Musk tweeted back: “This was a mistake by many people at Twitter. It is definitely allowed.”
Hence, it’s possible Irwin left over conflicts with Musk’s approach to content moderation or the lack thereof. Musk has since been promoting the film on his own Twitter account, although he notes the video will be “advertising-restricted, as advertisers have the right to decide what content their ads appear with.”
Irwin marks the second recent high-profile executive departure from Twitter. Last week, Twitter’s head of engineering, Foad Dabiri, also resigned shortly after US presidential candidate Ron DeSantis held a disastrous call on Twitter Spaces to launch his campaign. Dabiri, however, said his resignation was “independent of any recent events.”
The loss of both executives occurs as Twitter has shed about 80% of its staff since Musk bought the company, which has been struggling to generate a profit. The staffing exodus has raised questions over whether the social media platform can grow and maintain its operations.
The company is bringing in a new CEO to take over the reins from Musk. Former advertising chief for NBCUniversal Linda Yaccarino is expected to start her job soon. However, Musk will remain at Twitter as an executive chair and chief technology officer.