The day after Elon Musk closed his deal to purchase Twitter, the corporate’s Seattle workplace held a Halloween get together for workers and their kids. Rebecca Scott Thein wearing vivid inexperienced to play an alien to her daughter’s Buzz Lightyear. Thein, whose job at Twitter (now X) was to assist the platform plan for and navigate elections, was driving to the get together when an pressing name got here in. On the opposite finish of the cellphone was a member of Twitter’s coverage workforce. The corporate had simply obtained a “consent decree”—basically, a risk of authorized motion—in Brazil, which was about to carry runoffs for extremely polarized presidential and gubernatorial elections.
An avowed free speech absolutist, Musk had already publicly introduced that he would pare again content material moderation—the programs and groups that Twitter had in place to take care of problematic materials on its platform. The issue was, Twitter had already dedicated to doing one thing in regards to the quantity of election-related misinformation in Brazil. The Brazilian authorities needed Twitter to face by its guarantees. If it didn’t comply, the coverage workforce member advised her, the Brazilian authorities may nice the corporate or shut off the platform—which had greater than 19 million customers within the nation. One thing wanted to be performed, and rapidly.
Thein recollects arriving at an workplace of listless workers—many taking part in foosball and lounging about, as there was no work to be performed. Shortly after Musk took over, the corporate had locked down lots of its inside programs to make sure no modifications have been made throughout the management handover (and coming layoffs). “Our lively listing received shut off, all of our programs have been shut off,” says Thein. She had no method of realizing which leaders nonetheless labored on the firm or who to carry the alert to. “I received this name and I simply thought, ‘Oh, no, What do I do? Nobody is on-line.’”
Thein ducked right into a glass-walled convention room and, utilizing what she knew of Twitter’s e-mail conventions, started guessing on the contact particulars of the brand new management workforce. As dad and mom and kids arrived to a DJ and inflatable ghosts overlooking the Seattle skyline, Thein questioned who was even round to do something in regards to the Brazil drawback.
What adopted was a chaotic rush to attempt to plug gaps in Twitter’s processes and forestall the platform from turning into a vector of mis- and disinformation throughout a significant election. To know what occurred, WIRED spoke with 5 folks concerned in managing the disaster.
Thein now worries that what she skilled in these early days of Musk’s management was much less a fluke than a harbinger. A yr later, Thein, in addition to different former workers and consultants, fear that X, gutted by layoffs and helmed by a pacesetter hostile to moderation, is careening towards catastrophe in 2024. It’s a yr by which greater than 50 nations—together with the US—will maintain elections.