It’s been almost two years since Elon Musk took over Twitter (now X), after which the Tesla CEO laid off about 80% of the workforce.
These cuts included reducing the trust and safety team from 4,026 to 2,849, while halving the number of full-time moderators from 107 to just 51.
Now it appears X is hiring again, as there are two dozen job openings listed on its careers website, for both cybersecurity and safety roles.
Plaster on a bullet hole
The job postings list a number of locations for the new roles, including major U.S. technology centers such as New York City and Palo Alto, California, in addition to X’s international offices in Manila, Philippines, and Delhi, India.
X announced in January 2024 that it would establish a new Trust and Safety Center at its Austin, Texas office, which would house 100 full-time content moderators. These roles appear to be included.
Of course, there is still a significant shortfall compared to the 2022 workforce, but the move does mark a fairly significant symbolic defeat for Musk, who bought the platform in 2022 to “protect freedom of speech,” but has instead undoubtedly ushered in an era of virtually unlimited content.
This, as expected, got X into trouble as the platform was recently shut down in Brazil after refuse to block accounts that spread disinformation and hate speech — though Musk insisted it was political censorship. In the same vein, nearly half of all advertisers have left the site — and X lost nearly half a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2023.
While the moderation staff will likely be a very welcome move, it’s hard to imagine that just a few more staffers will soften Musk’s free-for-all philosophy. On the security front, X is hiring threat intelligence specialists and security engineers to help secure the site.
Lately, X has been struggling with concerns about privacy and security, and bugs and crashes – exacerbated by staff losses. The quality assurance testing (or lack thereof) appears to have led to multiple issues, including breaking external links.
In these uncertain times for the platform, many users expect Musk to make some drastic changes to make the site more secure. This hiring spree could be a step in the right direction.
Via TechCrunch
