The United Nations has urged billionaire Elon Musk to ensure human rights are respected at Twitter amid reports of mass layoffs following his acquisition of the influential social networking platform.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, wrote an open letter to Musk on Saturday. Türk cited the sacking of Twitter’s human rights team in the letter, saying that the reports of massive staff cuts were not “an encouraging start”.
“Twitter is part of a global revolution that has transformed how we communicate,” said Türk. “But I write with concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it.”
Since Musk’s takeover of Twitter last month, high-profile resignations and mass layoffs have been rocking the company. Parag Agrawl and Ned Segal, who were the CEO and chief financial officer, respectively, were among the first top executives to be shown the door. Their departures were the subject of intense media scrutiny and speculation as to what the future of current staff would be in the face of increasing uncertainty and Musk’s radical decisions at Twitter. There are reports half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff could be laid off. However, some fired employees are also being called back.
As new owner of @Twitter, @ElonMusk has enormous responsibilities. UN Human Rights chief @volker_turk shares some thoughts on what Musk needs to do to protect #FreeSpeech and other rights too. (1/8)
Read 👉 https://t.co/8H34KhAn2v pic.twitter.com/AkiPcGknVX
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) November 5, 2022
According to Türk, Twitter needs to “understand the harms associated with its platform”.
“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” Türk said. “Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution.”
The commissioner urged Musk to ensure that human rights are central to the management of Twitter under his leadership.
Furthermore, Türk said Twitter should stand up for the rights to privacy and free expression to the full extent possible, under relevant laws, and to transparently report on government requests that would infringe those rights.
He said free speech is not a “free pass” and that viral spread of harmful disinformation, like that seen during the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to vaccines, results in real world harms.
“Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplifying content that results in harm to other people’s rights.”
The letter called for prohibition of hatred inciting discrimination, hostility, and violence on Twitter.
“Spread of hate speech on social media has had horrific consequences for thousands. Twitter’s content moderation policies should continue to bar such hatred on the platform,” Türk said. “Every effort needs to be made to remove such content promptly. Human rights law is clear – freedom of expression stops at hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence.”
It also stressed the need for protecting user privacy on the platform.
“Free speech depends on effective protection of privacy. It is vital that Twitter refrain from invasive user tracking and amassing related data and that it resist, to the fullest extent possible under applicable laws, unjustified requests from governments for user data.”
Twitter is facing a class-action lawsuit from at least five former employees who complained that they were not given sufficient notice under the US federal law and only found out about their termination when locked out of their work accounts.
According to the US Worker Adjustment and Restraining Notification Act, mass layoffs at large corporations require 60 days’ notice.
