The Associated PressNov 08, 2022 10:09:15 IST

By MATT O’BRIEN and DAVID KLEPPER:

Twitter is struggling to reply to political misinformation and other unsafe posts on the social media system following Elon Musk fired around half of its workforce just times ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, in accordance to staff members who survived the cuts and an outdoors voting legal rights team.

The the latest mass layoffs spared numerous of the persons whose career it is to hold despise and misinformation off the social-media system. Musk slice just 15% of those people frontline written content-moderation personnel, compared to around 50% career cuts companywide, an govt mentioned past week.

But in preparation for the layoffs, personnel claimed the organization also sharply minimized how numerous staff members can look into a particular account’s digital background and behaviour — a follow vital to examine if it is been applied maliciously and acquire motion to suspend it. The firm stated it froze accessibility to these tools to minimize “insider risk” at a time of transition.

The developments are resulting in issue as the US midterm elections culminate on Tuesday. Even though hundreds of thousands of Us citizens have presently cast early and absentee ballots, thousands and thousands far more are envisioned to go to the polls to forged in-person votes. Election watchers fear the system may perhaps not be equipped to handle dislike speech, misinformation that could influence voter security and protection, and actors trying to get to solid question on the