By Emmanuel Ogbodo
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly known as Twitter), the company underwent a significant reduction in staff, with layoffs across all departments. However, two years later, X has begun hiring new employees for its security, cybersecurity, and content moderation teams.
When Musk first took control of X, around 6,000 employees were laid off, as he believed fewer workers were needed to keep the company functional. This cut impacted various teams, including trust and safety, reducing full-time content moderators from 107 to 51, while the number of contracted moderators dropped from 2,613 to 2,305. Musk’s intention was to prioritise free speech on the platform, believing that extensive content moderation was unnecessary.
Despite this, X soon realised the need to hire back content moderators. The initial layoffs were not based on a detailed analysis of the workforce required to handle the challenges of content moderation, leading to renewed hiring efforts. X has confirmed plans to establish a new Trust and Safety centre in Austin, Texas, which will employ 100 full-time content moderators.
In addition to content moderation roles, X is also seeking a director of strategic response for its safety team and government affairs managers, which are crucial given the company’s past conflicts with governments. For example, X was banned in Brazil due to allegations of spreading disinformation.
As online safety and security grow more critical, the balance between free speech and effective content moderation remains important. The creation of a dedicated team to manage safety concerns is seen as a positive step for the platform.
