In the heights of San Francisco, in the steep and colorful streets, Melissa Ingle receives guests in her family home. In the living room, in this cloudy beginning of December, she sits a newly decorated tree. “It’s almost Christmas and it’s pretty stressful,” she worries herself with technology and company. He has not received compensation or salary for a month.
Like many, she is part of the wave of mass layoffs operated by the new head of Twitter, Elon Musk, in November. However, he would like to spend the holidays “happy with his two children”, he continues as he looks at a picture of his children on the shelf.
Melissa Ingle started working at Twitter in September 2021. Data scientist specializing in content moderation and specifically on political misinformation, his role was to review any terms that violated the platform’s rules. Not only in the United States, but also throughout the world. Like more than half of former Twitter employees, she was fired from it without first saying thank you. In her case, as a contractual subcontractor, she did not have the advantages of other employees, such as having mutual insurance.
“I was devastated”
Sitting at the coffee table, Melissa Ingle strives to give complete answers and doesn’t hesitate to talk about her personal situation. Between each of her responses, she takes a deep breath to try to calm the stress. She remembers with emotion the day she learned of her dismissal. It was November 12 to be exact. “The week of the midterm elections in the United States, and since he was working on political disinformation, he was very concerned about these issues and had no indication of the work to be done.”
Several questions then arise. Living in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities, without a job? “I wondered if I was going to keep working and living here,” she admits.
Then, for a week, there is no news from the Twitter address. Send requests internally to find out why your access was cut off. But their pleas were not heard. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, there was no clear communication. Management is completely erratic, there has been no collective deliberation, all these layoffs are based on one person,” he continues without naming Elon Musk.
A few days later, on November 16, the new boss send an email to all employees. The message is simple: work hard for Twitter or get out. They are given 24 hours to make a decision or their access is closed. “In the United States, in the technology sector in particular, employees sign a confidentiality agreement that avoids publicly denigrating the company. For my part, I did not sign a specific agreement for this dismissal situation.”
This is the reason why he has multiplied the interviews in the American press since his departure. “People need to know how moderation works,” insists Melissa Ingle, as she worries about increase in hateful content and racists for a month. Statements confirmed by a study of the Center to Counter Digital Hate. He also points to the lack of engineers who specialize in moderation despite Elon Musk dissolved on December 12 the board of trust and security, an entity that brought together a hundred independent investigators and human rights activists.
“It’s quite interesting to see that back in April, and the Musk acquisition announcements, they pointed to Twitter’s moderation policy.” In fact, the billionaire considers himself a “defender of absolute freedom of expression”, even though he borders on hate speech, as illustrated by the return of previously banned accounts such as Donald Trump’s.
“We believe in this platform”
“Obviously freedom of expression is necessary,” insists Melissa Ingle. “But you can’t have a free platform without moderation. Our team spent a lot of time trying to address these issues.” On the day of the purchase, she says that she was “terrified,” but that didn’t stop her. to continue working “Because we believe in this platform,” proclaims the former employee.
Elon Musk tweeted several times to denounce Twitter’s moderation policies before his arrival. But his new management has given rise to controversies such as the twitter archives.
The former employee is currently looking for a job and remains in contact with her fellow data scientists. “It is important to be in contact. In a WhatsApp group of around thirty people we help each other, we share job offers”. Among them, some continue to work on Twitter. “They are afraid to speak up when they see what happens to those who have publicly spoken negatively about their new boss. They are afraid of being fired or losing severance pay,” she said.
With Elon Musk, a bad tweet can be fatal. Eric Frohnhoefer worked at Twitter for the Android operating system and dared to contradict his new boss. Elon Musk fired him in a (since-deleted) post that he simply said “he’s fired.”
Source: BFM TV
