Sources: Twitter froze some staff access to content moderation and policy enforcement tools, raising worries about a misinformation spike before the US midterms

Twitter Inc., the social network being overhauled by new owner Elon Musk, has frozen some employee access to internal tools used …

Bloomberg 2022-11-01

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter had already locked down product updates after Musk’s bid to prevent unauthorized changes, while internal frustration over his moderation plans was building ahead of elections. The new restriction extends that control posture from product changes to the teams responsible for applying policy.

Later coverage describes a smaller trust-and-safety organization and code freezes that constrained system changes, placing this access freeze in a broader erosion of Twitter’s ability to operate and adapt its enforcement machinery.

First-order effects

Staff whose access is frozen cannot use the affected moderation and policy-enforcement tools, reducing Twitter’s immediate capacity to act on content under its rules before the US midterms.
Elon Musk’s overhaul puts Twitter’s trust-and-safety operation under added operational constraint at the moment election-related misinformation is a central concern.

Second-order effects

The access limits compound the pressure on the moderation organization later reduced through trust-and-safety staff cuts, making staffing and usable internal tooling jointly critical to enforcement capacity.
Policy changes sought by Musk become harder to implement consistently when access restrictions are followed by the code freezes former staff described in Twitter’s strained internal systems.

Third-order effects

If leadership-driven access controls, staffing reductions, and engineering freezes persist together, platform governance shifts from a policy-design problem to an operational-capacity problem: rules matter only when teams can access and update the systems that enforce them.

The trend: Twitter’s overhaul is part of a broader shift in which ownership and organizational restructuring directly determine a platform’s practical capacity to govern speech and election-related content.

Discussion

@yoyoel Yoel Roth on x
Since Saturday, we've been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. We've made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero. Here's the latest on our work, and what's next.
@yoyoel Yoel Roth on x
Our primary success measure for content moderation is impressions: how many times harmful content is seen by our users. The changes we've made have almost entirely eliminated impressions on this content in search and elsewhere across Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@waitbutwhy Tim Urban on x
Refreshing transparency https://twitter.com/...
@daveyalba Davey Alba on x
Employees also tell us Elon has questioned some internal policies on the Twitter Rules, including its general misinfo policy covering Covid-19 and elections, and Twitter's hateful misconduct policy against deadnaming transgender individuals. https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://…
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
Some still have full access but it's a small group ~30. The company did this to keep employees from doing something unexpected given the Musk transition (the app code base was also frozen, e.g.) But with US election a week away some T&S folks worry they can't do their job
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
One other small but important note: Musk seems very interested in two specific policies: 1. The general misinfo policy, which he feels is too broad 2. A “hateful conduct” policy about targeting transgender people by misgendering or deadnaming He wants both to be reviewed
@redsteeze Stephen L. Miller on x
Yeah old Twitter had their chance on that one too. They clamped down on an accurate story. https://twitter.com/...
@baldingsworld @baldingsworld on x
Twitter content moderation was such a dumpster fire, dumpster fires refused to be associated with their content moderation protocols. https://twitter.com/...
@pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings on x
Anyway, think folks are getting too drawn into the election-timing of it. Much more likely it's just a function of axing half the company and trying to find dollars down every sofa, because it's unaffordable to run given the debt for it. And he has no idea how to make it work.
@pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings on x
Makes little sense unless the plan is to start escort some large fraction (or all) of them out of the building and are internally guarding themselves against problems on the way out from either just-fired employees or expecting-to-be-fired employees as morale collapses.
@cernovich @cernovich on x
They won't be able to Hunter Biden the laptop story. https://twitter.com/...
@emptywheel @emptywheel on x
Elmo, with several personal gripes against trans people, considering changing Twitter policy on deadnaming. https://twitter.com/...
@daveyalba Davey Alba on x
People who were on call to enforce Twitter's policies during Brazil's election did get access to the internal tools on Sunday, but in a limited capacity, according to our sources. No one had access during the surge in hate speech on the platform Fri/Sat https://www.bloomberg.com/…
@daveyalba Davey Alba on x
@KurtWagner8 ... Here's the story. Typically hundreds of people have access to the company's tools to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech and last week that was reduced to ~15 ppl https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x
“Most people who work in Twitter's Trust and Safety organization are currently unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech, except for the most high-impact violations....” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@yoyoel Yoel Roth on x
Why? Because bystanders don't always have full context, we have a higher bar for bystander reports in order to find a violation. As a result, many reports of Tweets that in fact do violate our policies end up marked as non-violative on first review.
@evelyndouek Evelyn Douek on x
One of my big fears was that Twitter, which has been industry-leading in releasing data to researchers and the public, would become less transparent under new ownership. These threads and the work they represent is really encouraging. https://twitter.com/...
@justinhendrix Justin Hendrix on x
“The scaled-back content moderation has raised concerns among employees on Twitter's Trust and Safety team, who believe the company will be short-handed in enforcing policies in the run-up to the US midterm election on Nov. 8.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@profcarroll David Carroll on x
Elon overpaid for Twitter. Twitter employees get paid in stock. That's why he's going to cut as close to the bone as he can. Welcome to Elon's Husk. https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
Whatever else is happening, this kind of transparency is good to see... So many misconceptions about trust and safety (on all sides of the issue) are because people have no idea what's actually going on. https://twitter.com/...
@christinapushaw Christina Pushaw on x
If you're not allowed to question science, it's not science If you're not allowed to question elections, you don't live in a democracy https://twitter.com/...
@yoyoel Yoel Roth on x
We're changing how we enforce these policies, but not the policies themselves, to address the gaps here. You'll hear more from me and our teams in the days to come as we make progress. Talk is cheap; expect the data that proves we're making meaningful improvements.
@grady_booch Grady Booch on x
Jesus take the wheel. https://twitter.com/...
@daveyalba Davey Alba on x
Twitter seems to pulling directly from FB's playbook: Refute the presence of hate speech speech/misinformation by saying “people aren't seeing it” (you might remember FB's Widely Viewed Content report!)—but it doesn't mean it's not happening or that the company can't obscure it. …
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
New: Twitter has limited access to the enforcement tools used by the Trust and Safety team for misinfo/abuse. Key considering most of the high profile/gray area issues usually make it to internal teams w/ @EdLudlow @daveyalba @jackiedavalos1 https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
Hmmmm, and why did hateful slurs spike on Saturday? It's a mystery. https://twitter.com/...
@daveyalba Davey Alba on x
This scaled-back access has worried some on Twitter's Trust & Safety team, who believe they could be short-handed for the US midterm elections coming up in a week. Others are worried about data access given to researchers, and abt foreign influence ops https://www.bloomberg.com/.…
@nickmartin Nick Martin on x
Twitter can and should obviously do a lot more on this issue, but I'm glad to see the company is discussing these things openly and not immediately abandoning measures to combat hate and harassment as many had feared it would. Hopefully this will lead to progress, but we'll see. …
@christinapushaw Christina Pushaw on x
Great news. When hundreds of people are able to shadowban or suspend users, some make those decisions arbitrarily, with no recourse for the deplatformed person. Allowing rampant political censorship before an election is a threat to democracy (see: New York Post / laptop) https:/…
@pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings on x
Probably expecting very heavy layoffs in that team imminently then. https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Narrator: there is a major election in the next seven days. I just reported an account sharing lies about the election then read this piece informing me those reports are now likely useless. https://twitter.com/...
@donie Donie O'Sullivan on x
Twitter is battling a “surge” in hate the past few days. https://twitter.com/...
@astrokatie Katie Mack on x
Assuming these reports are reliable, this is both deeply depressing and entirely unsurprising 😞 https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Bring back Vine?
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Scoop w/ @sarafischer: Twitter engineers have been instructed to look at the old Vine code, with hopes that Vine could be revived by year-end. https://www.axios.com/...
@pandemona Sara Beykpour on x
some free advice, from someone who worked at Vine and also led the shutdown of Vine. This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+. You don't want to look there. If you want to revive Vine, you should start over. trust me on this one guys ✌️🌱 https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Some news from inside Elon's war room: Twitter is strongly considering making verified users pay $4.99 a month to keep their badges. Many questions remain. Subscribe to read ➡️ https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@mrbeast @mrbeast on x
@elonmusk If you did that and actually competed with tik tok that'd be hilarious
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
I have also heard this, though unclear if Vine will actually be relaunched at this point. Musk also has a lot of people telling him to just bake the experience into core Twitter. https://twitter.com/...
@mrbeast @mrbeast on x
@elonmusk No one is original anymore, whatever you do will be on every other platform the next month unless it has a deep moat. YouTube has shorts, insta has reels, Reddit, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. all copied TT. Whatever u do make it hard to copy or it's a waste of time imo
@simonyusea Simon Yu on x
This might actually justify the valuation now https://twitter.com/...
@loudmouthjulia Julia Alexander on x
Twitter has advantage of not being a Chinese-led company, which may appeal to some advertisers/users. Short form video circulated well on Twitter without Twitter making money off it. But nostalgia alone doesn't make a user base. He has to make Vine as Twitter cool, which is hard …
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
The Vine code is so old that it would be faster and smarter to rewrite it from scratch than resurrecting dead code from 2017. Also TikTok spent $1B a year in ads to grow its user base. I don't see how Twitter can afford to bootstrap a new video social network as a separate app. h…
@albertwenger Albert Wenger on x
Shuttering Vine was a mistake by Twitter — rebooting it could work out well, especially if the US government decides to clamp down on TikTok https://twitter.com/...
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Just recompile the Vine project with the latest Xcode, and you're done! I don't know what these Twits are doing, just press that damn “Build” button. Just hire me bruh, I can take this “maneuver” all by myself over a coffee break with no extra help - some replies, probably https:…
@danrue_ig DanRue on x
Yes plzzz I can have fun making 7 second videos again lol https://twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
I guess everything I've learned about product management is wrong and we should have been making decisions via Twitter poll this entire time 😁 https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
This reboot of Silicon Valley is way, way, way funnier than the original. https://twitter.com/...
@chadfowler @chadfowler on x
Could be extrapolated and applied to any software rotting in the closet. Also, code is a liability. The system (and product) are the asset. https://twitter.com/...
@charles_gaba Charles Ghoul-ba on x
Friendster FTW! https://twitter.com/...
@theromit Romit Mehta on x
If you want a video longer than 6 seconds it will be $3 for each additional chunk of 6 seconds. If you are certified/verified @ $20/mo, you get 12 seconds and after that, $2/additional 12. https://t.co/VGPQTzLaQQ
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
A better idea then making users pay to make content. Alas! Still not great, because who's going to make Vines instead of TikToks? YouTube and Instagram have giant audiences and are resorting to brute force to make their TikTok clones work. Twitter doesn't have that available. htt…
@jpbrammer @jpbrammer on x
this is the plot of Mewtwo's origin story https://twitter.com/...
@ethank Ethan Kaplan on x
Vine's entire source code leaked in 2016. He could have saved himself $44b instead of trying to resurrect a dead product no one used? Written in an old version of Python on a MySQL database. Imagine getting that working again https://amp.thehackernews.com/ ... https://twitter.com…
@gpingersoll Geoffrey Ingersoll on x
I've always thought it was incredible that Twitter bought — essentially TikTok — Vine, it was immensely popular, then they killed it, then China cloned it and renamed it, and now kids' brains are turning to pudding. https://twitter.com/...
@jamesrbuk James Ball on x
Wouldn't you just create a six second looping video mode on the modern Twitter architecture? That feels a lot quicker than reviving old code? https://twitter.com/...
@igorbobic Igor Bobic on x
would pay $20 a month for Vine https://twitter.com/...
@toadpacshakur ToadPac Shakur on x
The fact he didn't fast-track a reboot of Fleets says all you need to know about how well @WoozleWuzzle_ dominated the format to the point no one wanted to compete https://twitter.com/...
@jacobrubashkin Jacob Rubashkin on x
I take it back, Elon Twitter is good now https://twitter.com/...
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
I am deadly serious when I say this is going to be a business Elon pushes hard and tries to use to compete with TikTok. And I think it might work! Who knows. If I'm wrong it's not like it matters. One day we all return to the earth https://twitter.com/...
@brandonwenerd Brandon Wenerd on x
I'm far from a musk stan and had my issues with what Vine became in a pre-TikTok world, but reading the room - this is genuinely great idea. https://twitter.com/...
@samsheffer Sam Sheffer on x
we're getting a vine reboot in 2022? IMAGINE!? https://twitter.com/...
@frankthorp Frank Thorp V on x
*whispers* I mean, I really liked Vine... https://twitter.com/...
@arawnsley Adam Rawnsley on x
Not sure Vine works in the era of TikTok. Music licensing is what helped light the fire for TikTok. Also, 7 second limit is probably too tight https://twitter.com/...
@lindsaywigo Lindsay Wigo on x
Don't play me like this https://twitter.com/...
@teddyschleifer Teddy Schleifer on x
like Elon tweeted he was thinking about this last night! https://www.axios.com/...
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
huh. vine was ahead of its time! https://twitter.com/...
@realtimvine Tim Vine on x
Excuse me I never went anywhere. https://twitter.com/...
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on x
Elon Musk has enlisted more than 50 Tesla employees to help with his Twitter takeover https://www.cnbc.com/... Most of them are Autopilot software engineers. My latest @CNBC
@i_zzzzzz Brooks Otterlake on x
If Twitter gets even 10 percent of these people to pay $20/month, they will be making an extra 7.2 million dollars per year. That's enough to buy four or even five houses in Toronto — and, again, that's every single year https://twitter.com/...
@jarjarfan69 @jarjarfan69 on x
I'm not convinced Elon Musk is wrecking this website unintentionally. I think there's a real possibility this interaction broke him so fundamentally that he decided to destroy it on purpose so no one else could do it to him again. https://twitter.com/...
@nick_craver Nick Craver on x
“I could build Twitter in a weekend” Yeah okay. A lot of people told me they could build Stack Overflow in a weekend too. But then a decade went by and it never happened. So, ya know, good luck with that.
@danslott Dan Slott on x
The origin of my Twitter verification: I got it during the height of the death threats over Spider-Man/Superior Spider-Man. At the same time a number of bad actors created multiple impersonation accounts and were doing awful things in my name. Verification was incredibly helpful.…
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
Tesla shareholders must be loving this https://twitter.com/...
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
I agree that this will one day be a business school case study https://twitter.com/...
@binanimals @binanimals on x
They said twitter couldn't kill a child pedestrian. One man dared to dream. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@clarajeffery Clara Jeffery on x
“two Tesla employees told CNBC, workers at the electric automaker are pressured to help with projects at his other companies for no additional pay b/c it's seen as good for their careers, or b/c the work is regarded as helping with a related project.” https://www.cnbc.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
One thing is increasingly certain about Twitter ... it WILL soon run on your car https://twitter.com/...
@paulobrien Paul O'Brien on x
Uh oh. Twitter about to become obsessed with wheelie bins and traffic cones. https://twitter.com/...
@alexbloor @alexbloor on x
Given how there are many long promised features still not delivered in Tesla... if I were a Tesla owner or shareholder, this would not please me. https://twitter.com/...
@violetblue @violetblue on x
Haha, this Autopilot? The same one under federal criminal investigation right now? 🤦‍♀️ https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@manan @manan on x
so the same team that hasn't really shipped a finished product and missed all their delivery dates... is going to fix twitter... https://twitter.com/...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
Mmmm, smells like a class action shareholder suit. https://twitter.com/...
@golikehellmachi @golikehellmachi on x
it won't matter if his fanboy shareholders don't do anything about it, but, like, this is not how this is supposed to work, nor is it a good idea from a practical standpoint. tesla's subsidizing twitter in more ways than one. https://twitter.com/...
@alexdemling Alexander Demling on x
I bet they have nothing else on their plate https://twitter.com/...
@gregbensinger @gregbensinger on x
Would seem unwise to put content moderation on autopilot https://twitter.com/...
@hemal Hemal Shah on x
Very excited for this collab. Can't wait to browse the timeline while driving. https://twitter.com/...
@zck Zak Kukoff on x
Downside: we get self-driving cars years later Upside: twitter will occasionally burst into flames https://twitter.com/...
@aaronm @aaronm on x
[tesla engineer whispering to twitter engineer] so how do you keep it from catching on fire
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Twitter's production code is running on autopilot alright https://twitter.com/...
@pathik @pathik on x
Love all the hustle, but how are Tesla shareholders not pissed off that Elon is using Tesla resources to work on something that doesn't accrue any value back to them? Not just the CEO's focus being split but also its dev team. https://twitter.com/...
@disorderlyswine Scott on x
Good news everyone, the Tesla autopilot team is working on Twitter. Let chaos reign. https://twitter.com/...
@glennf Glenn Fleishman on x
Looking forward to my phone bursting into flame https://twitter.com/...
@vintuitive @vintuitive on x
Twitter employees say managers instructed them to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week to hit Musk's aggressive deadlines and that their jobs are at stake. https://twitter.com/...
@sjvn Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on x
Because we all know how good embedded systems software engineers are at social networking development. I'm sure they'd be at least as good as I would be at say writing opera arias since I am a writer after all. https://twitter.com/...
@rayminehane Ray Minehane on x
The team that makes that feature currently under criminal investigation for killing people is now working at Twitter https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@annemariebridy Annemarie Bridy on x
I wonder how Tesla's shareholders will feel about this diversion of capacity to Elon's private venture. https://twitter.com/...
@modestproposal1 @modestproposal1 on x
😀 https://twitter.com/...
@sirsteven @sirsteven on x
Tesla is publicly-traded. shareholders will be pissed https://twitter.com/...
@disorderlyswine Scott on x
@Techmeme @lorakolodny By Friday Twitter will somehow have phantom braked doing a right hand turn from the left lane and clobbered a bicyclist.
@rynbtmn Ryan Bateman on x
Lotta takes on this, of course, but the one that sticks for me is: the engineering skills for connected car systems software are very different from those of world-size social networks, and someone who does not know this is likely a terribly boss for both. https://twitter.com/...
@kimbenabib Kim Benabib on x
If you start seeing panel gaps around here you'll know why. https://twitter.com/...
@jyarow Jay Yarow on x
Tesla shareholders happy about this? https://twitter.com/...
@kylefrost Kyle Frost on x
“Well, I was working on making an electric car drive itself, but now Elon wants me to figure out how to re-launch Vine.” https://twitter.com/...
@odannyboy @odannyboy on x
This just shows how stupid this whole thing is. The problems they are supposedly trying to solve aren't engineering problems. You'd do better bringing in 50 MBAs and Liberal Arts majors. https://twitter.com/...
@yuhline Yuh-Line Niou on x
I'm laughing at the responses to this tweet being like “oooh twitter is how you're relevant”. To Stephen King. Who is one of the prolific authors of our time...Who...Actually. Gets. Paid. For. His. Words. https://twitter.com/...
@_shamgod @_shamgod on x
Its certainly a status symbol, idk why ppl pretend otherwise. People dont get their verification checks revoked for engaging in disinformation campaigns, and you are given better privileges and control of your experience on the app once you are verified. https://twitter.com/...
@chriskeall Chris Keall on x
Not sure I'd be thrilled at this distraction if I was a Telsa owner or shareholder (or staffer). Huge, open-ended distraction https://twitter.com/...
@karissabe Karissa Bell on x
What? You mean self-driving car software isn't directly applicable to a social network? https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@yevp @yevp on x
It's so weird to me that this is happening. Bringing in Tesla engineers to overlook Twitter is more of a merger, less of a “purchase” - but that's not how this was teed up. $TSLA shareholders should be annoyed, no? Aren't there controls in place for this type of thing? https://tw…
@patterballs Steve Patterson on x
I'm with Stephen King on this one. Between the 2 of us we have 6.823 million followers on here! https://twitter.com/...
@broderick Ryan Broderick on x
I love watching rich guys destroy their own website because they're obsessed with the idea of internet landlordism https://www.garbageday.email/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@baxiabhishek Abhishek Baxi on x
Stellar work with embedded systems. Now, do this social networking shiz. Great plan. https://twitter.com/...
@buildtheikedike @buildtheikedike on x
That seems in conflict with his fiduciary responsibility to shareholders of Tesla if they aren't being compensated by Twitter. If so, that's a pretty large expenditure. Twitter will be feeding revenue into Tesla for these long-term “consulting fees” I would imagine. https://twitt…
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on x
The real question this story raises... Should your side hustle be working for your boss on his side hustle? ;) https://www.cnbc.com/...
@yelvington Steve Yelvington on x
Soon Twitter will be able to rearend a bus and burst into flames without human intervention. https://twitter.com/...
@annierpalmer Annie Palmer on x
“According to internal records viewed by CNBC, employees from Musk's other companies are now authorized to work at Twitter, including more than 50 from Tesla, two from the Boring Company, and one from Neuralink.” More from @lorakolodny: https://www.cnbc.com/...

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