Twitter’s head of trust and safety quits Elon Musk’s company amid concerns about safeguarding against harmful content

Ella Irwin, the head of trust and safety at Twitter, has announced her resignation from the social media giant, Reuters reported. Details surrounding Irwin's departure remain scarce, although reports indicate that her internal Slack account had been deactivated.

This comes amidst ongoing criticism over the platform's handling of harmful content since it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk in October. Irwin's departure coincides with Twitter's struggle to retain advertisers who have grown cautious about associating their brands with unsuitable content.

Earlier in May, Musk revealed the appointment of Linda Yaccarino, former advertising chief at NBCUniversal, as the new CEO of Twitter. The move is seen as an effort to address the company's challenges in attracting and retaining advertisers.

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Irwin, who joined Twitter in June 2022, assumed her role as head of the trust and safety team in November, overseeing content moderation. The platform has faced mounting criticism for its perceived lack of robust safeguards against harmful content since Musk's acquisition.

Twitter's cost-cutting measures under Musk's leadership have resulted in significant layoffs, including employees dedicated to combating harmful and illegal content, ensuring election integrity, and promoting accurate information on the platform. Despite these efforts, concerns over Twitter's content moderation persist.

Musk has been promoting a new feature called Community Notes, which enables users to provide additional context to tweets. The introduction of this feature aims to tackle the spread of misleading information on the platform.

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Twitter's ability to address content-related concerns and regain advertisers' trust will be a key focus for Linda Yaccarino, the newly appointed CEO. As the platform continues to evolve under her leadership, users and brands alike will be keenly observing Twitter's efforts to create a safer and more reliable environment for social media engagement.

(With Reuters inputs)