• Instability continues to reign at Twitter as its Trust and Safety Council has officially been dissolved. 
• Its dissolution reportedly happened an hour before its members were set to gather for a meeting on Zoom.
• Members were informed of the decision via email and told their “help is no longer needed.”

The trashcan fire that is Twitter post-Musk purchase continues to rage on, with the latest in a series of concerning decisions being the dissolution of its Trust and Safety Council.

As reported by both The Washington Post (paywall) and NPR, the advisory group which consisted of roughly 100 independent civil, and human rights organisations, has been disbanded, after originally being formed in 2016 in order to tackle the growing problem of hate speech on the social media platform.

The decision was shared with members via email an hour before they were set to meet via Zoom. The move also comes a few days after three high-profile members of the Trust and Safety Council resigned, citing the continued decline of the wellbeing of Twitter users under the Musk regime.

Three of us resigned from Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council today: @eirliani @podesta_lesley and me. Here’s why https://t.co/h05TblfGIO pic.twitter.com/iqcHvhbgms

— annecollier (@annecollier) December 8, 2022

The aforementioned email sent to members explained that the company would be, “reevaluating how best to bring external insights,” adding that the Council was, “not the best structure to do this.”

The email goes on to note that Twitter would be ramping up its efforts as regards safety on the platform. “Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” it read.

Whether such plans are indeed underway is unclear for now, especially as Musk said he would put together a content moderation council in the lead up to his purchase of Twitter, but has since walked back the decision.

As such, the same could well happen here, as Musk continues to make changes to the platform with each passing day and seemingly no checks or balances being in place.

While we must acknowledge Musk’s words regarding the policing of exploitative sexual content of children on the platform that has been allowed to thrive under the watch of the Trust and Safety Council, dissolving it with no real replacement organisation being mentioned does not give cause for optimism either.

We will have to wait to see how this decision will come back to Twitter in the long run.