Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), announced on Wednesday that he has made cuts to X’s election integrity team. This team’s purpose is to prevent election interference and manipulation on the platform.
In response to reports about the cuts, Musk tweeted on X, “Oh, you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.”
It is currently unknown how many people were affected by the cuts, but according to The Information, four employees based in Dublin, including the team’s head, Aaron Rodericks, were impacted.
These cuts come less than a month after X’s announcement that it was expanding its safety and elections team to prioritize combating manipulation, identifying inauthentic accounts, and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats.
In the August announcement, X emphasized its enforcement of the Civic Integrity policy, which outlines safety standards and rules regarding election interference, unverified media, and deceptive identities.
Musk’s decision to cut the election integrity team is part of his broader efforts to scale back content moderation measures on the platform. These efforts include imposing limits on the number of posts users can read in a day and reinstating previously suspended accounts, such as the one belonging to former President Trump.
X has faced criticism recently for failing to take action on numerous posts containing “extreme hate speech,” as highlighted by anti-hate-speech organizations.
Since taking over the platform last year, Musk has made controversial choices, including mass layoffs, firing top executives, and introducing the Twitter Blue program, which requires users to pay a monthly subscription for verification.
The reported cuts were announced just hours before the second Republican presidential debate in Simi Valley, California, where seven candidates were scheduled to participate.
When asked for a comment on the cuts, X responded, “Busy now, please check back later.”
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