The United Nations rights chief has urged Elon Musk to make respect for human rights central to Twitter’s policies, after the new owner sacked around half the social network’s employees.
In an open letter, Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said that reports of Twitter’s entire human rights team being laid off were “not, from my perspective, an encouraging start”.
“Twitter is part of a global revolution that has transformed how we communicate,” Türk said in the letter. “But I write with concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it.”
“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” he added. “Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution.”
“In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership.”
Since completing his $44bn takeover last week, Musk has dissolved the company’s board and sacked a number of senior managers. On Friday he laid off around half of Twitter’s 7,500 strong workforce.
Concerns have also been expressed over Musk’s past comments relating to free speech, with fears that Twitter’s content moderation policies, already considered too relaxed by many, will be loosened further.
Addressing these issues, Türk said that free speech “is not a free pass,” pointing to the damage done by widely-shared misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplifying content that results in harms to people’s rights,” he said.