Toni Dimaano Tech 12.23.2022 19:Dec PM EST

Twitter's VP For Public Policy Quits As Layoffs Continue

Sinead McSweeney, Twitter's global vice president for public policy, has left the company on Thursday amid ambiguity surrounding Elon Musk's future as CEO.

Sweeney was reportedly removed from Twitter's IT system after ignoring Musk's infamous email asking for confirmation that his new "Twitter 2.0" was supported by the company's staff.

McSweeney Follows A Long List Of Executives That Have Departed From Twitter

As regulators from all over the world question Twitter's content moderation efforts, a high-ranking leader was laid off and left the company yet again.

According to CTV News, following the CEO's decision to reduce staff from more than 7,000 to under 2,000, questions were raised about the company's efforts to protect user data.

This includes the public policy team, which is in charge of liaising with legislators and members of civil society on issues like free speech, privacy, and online security.

The team addresses requests for the removal of problematic content made by governments and civil rights organizations and establishes rules to safeguard vulnerable users.

Because of this, backlogs might grow and some policies under development might go unnoticed if there are fewer employees.

Wio News writes that Nick Pickles, senior director for global public policy strategy, has stepped up to take over McSweeney's position.

It can be remembered that before quitting, McSweeney obtained a preliminary injunction that prevented Twitter from officially dismissing her, and she was rehired afterwards.

However, McSweeney eventually reached an end with Twitter on Tuesday after she did not get all the assurances she had requested from the billionaire and the company.

Musk Is Still Firing Staff After Controversial Massive Layoffs

The billionaire has personally overseen the firing of more than half the company's workforce ever since taking control of the microblogging platform.

The head of Twitter claimed that his drastic cost-cutting measures had prevented the company from suffering a $3 billion deficit.

The platform also laid off more engineers who were in charge of maintaining the site infrastructure last Friday, as per a report by Gizmodo.

An estimated 75% of Twitter's former 7,000 employees no longer work there due to forced and quasi-voluntary departures.

Additionally, the engineering, moral AI, content moderation, and now public policy teams of the platform have all been reduced to nothing or completely dissolved as well.

Along with its employees quitting, Twitter is still having trouble keeping many of its advertisers, who generate the majority of the business's revenue.

As of December 17, 72 of the top 100 advertisers on Twitter had paused their platform ad campaigns, CNN Business reports.

It is also important to note that after Twitter users voted over the weekend for him to step down as CEO, Musk may be thinking of finding someone else to lead the social media platform in the interim.

Aside from this, before Musk announced that he would start restoring the accounts, Twitter recently suspended the accounts of several journalists, drawing criticism from some lawmakers and officials.