Twitter's Safety Chief Quit. Here's Why.
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2022
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Yoel Roth used to lead the team that set the rules for what was allowed on Twitter, and aimed to keep users safe. Not long after Musk took over the company, Roth quit.
In an interview, he explains why he left and what he thinks is ahead for the company.
This episode also features reporting from NPR's Shannon Bond.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When Elon Musk's deal by Twitter closed, the tech site, the Verge, greeted the news with |
| 0:05.3 | this headline. |
| 0:06.8 | Welcome to Hell, Elon. |
| 0:08.4 | That's because Musk's stated vision for Twitter, a digital town square where all legal |
| 0:13.6 | speech flows freely, while it was about to run head-on into the citizens of that digital |
| 0:19.1 | town square. |
| 0:20.1 | Well, in the 24 hours since Elon Musk has, on Twitter, racist tweets have proliferated. |
| 0:27.9 | Things got chaotic fast. |
| 0:29.9 | Musk floated big changes to policies and features, launched and quickly rolled back a subscription |
| 0:34.8 | service, laid off half the staff. |
| 0:37.6 | Trolls seized the moment to spread hate. |
| 0:39.6 | Musk himself shared in sendy-ary memes and deleted a tweet containing a homophobic conspiracy |
| 0:44.6 | theory about the attack on Housepeaker Nancy Pelosi's husband. |
| 0:48.6 | All of it sent advertisers running for the exits. |
| 0:51.6 | The meantime, the list of companies reportedly suspended business with Twitter is still growing. |
| 0:56.7 | Ted sales, by the way, make up something like 90% of Twitter's revenue. |
| 1:00.6 | And the dominoes kept falling. |
| 1:02.2 | Elon Musk says Apple is threatening to withhold Twitter from its app store. |
| 1:06.7 | That move could be devastating for Twitter. |
| 1:09.2 | Musk later called that one a misunderstanding. |
| 1:11.5 | But there was also a warning from the European Union's Commissioner for Digital Policy. |
| 1:15.3 | He told Musk, Twitter would have to do more to protect users from hate speech and misinformation |
... |
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