Twitter’s head of trust and safety resigns
The VP of trust and safety at Twitter is no longer working at the social media platform. Ella Irwin, who was the head of safety and content moderation since June of last year, confirmed her exit in a Friday tweet.
Rumors of her departure first began making the rounds late Thursday, leaving people to speculate about whether she was fired or quit.
“I did resign but this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Irwin wrote Friday, without providing any further details.
Irwin’s resignation came just hours after CEO Elon Musk criticized Twitter’s handling of a conservative documentary blasting transgender health care for children and teens. The events became public earlier this week after the co-founder of conservative site The Daily Wire took to Twitter to complain about a content moderation decision regarding a film directed by anti-trans crusader Matt Walsh.
On Thursday , the first day of LGBTQ Pride Month, Walsh’s documentary was made available for free on Twitter to mark the first anniversary of its release.
However, Twitter issued a “hateful content” tag shortly after the publication, citing two instances of misgendering – or the misclassification of a person’s gender identity – which can negatively affect the mental and physical health of trans individuals.
The decision made the content “less discoverable.”
Boreing reminded the South African-born billionaire that the company had dropped its long-standing policy of prohibiting the misgendering or deadnaming of transgender users, but added that Twitter was still treating misgendering as harassment and abuse.
Musk responded to Boreing’s 16-tweet complaint on Thursday, explaining that what happened had been “a mistake by many people at Twitter.”
“(Misgendering) is definitely allowed,” Musk tweeted. “Whether or not you agree with using someone’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is at most rude and certainly breaks no laws.”
Irwin resigned that same day.
On Friday, Musk promoted the film on his own timeline by retweeting a Daily Wire link to the video. His caption read, “Every parent should watch this.”
The departure of Irwin comes just weeks after Musk announced he had hired Linda Yaccarino, a former advertising chief at NBCUniversal, to take over as the company’s new CEO in an apparent effort to win back advertisers.
The tech giant has seen several of its top advertisers step away from the platform since Musk acquired Twitter in October of last year.