Two Twitter top executives tasked with brand safety have left the company in a space of one week, as the platform faces growing brand safety concerns.
On Thursday, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety Ella Irwin resigned from her position. Soon after, the company’s head of brand safety and quality, A.J Brown also resigned from the company.
As head of Trust and Safety, Irwin helped oversee Twitter’s policies on harassment, hate speech, and violent content rules which were relaxed under Musk. She was also involved in account suspensions and would respond to Twitter users whose accounts were blocked.
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She however did not state why she was leaving, but her departure came shortly after Musk criticized Twitter’s handling of tweets about a conservative media company’s documentary that questions transgender medical treatment for children and teens.
Following her resignation, she wrote on Twitter,
“In all seriousness, I did resign but this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I’m so thankful to have worked with this amazing team of passionate, creative, and hardworking people. Will be cheering you all and Twitter as you go!”
Irwin is the second head of Trust and Safety to resign since Musk took over the company. The first, Yoel Roth, resigned last November. Roth had emerged since Musk’s acquisition as a leading voice at the company about its ongoing moderation efforts and work to limit an uptick in hate speech. He joined Musk on a Twitter Spaces discussion on Wednesday to assuage concerns about the platform’s handling of harmful content amid the changes.
Although, even before Twitter’s two top executives resigned from the company, Musk has been downsizing the number of workers tasked with safety and content moderation as part of the company’s widespread layoffs.
In November 2022, three of Twitter’s top security, safety, and privacy executives resigned, following Musk’s takeover of the company. Recall that Twitter’s chief information security officer and chief compliance officer resigned as the company started implementing changes that would allow users to more easily impersonate major brands and government officials.
Reports reveal that the departures came just hours before Musk sent his first email to Twitter employees, titled “Difficult times ahead” and implementing a mandatory return-to-work policy.
Meanwhile, when it comes to executive departures, Twitter is reportedly not alone. Bloomberg reports that Apple Inc., which is known for its stability at the top, is facing a new challenge, an unprecedented level of turnover in its executive ranks.
Reports reveal that over a stretch that began in the second half of 2022, Apple has lost about a dozen high-ranking executives. Most of these people carried the title of vice president, which is just below the senior vice president level that reports to Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook. They are some of the most important figures at Apple, responsible for the day-to-day operation of many core functions.