Twitter employees warn that the platform will be unreliable during midterms

After severe cuts to the platform's moderation staff, users are urged to be discerning when reading the "news"

Published November 5, 2022 4:00AM (EDT)

The world is on fire, but Twitter carries on (Getty Images/Twitter/Salon)
The world is on fire, but Twitter carries on (Getty Images/Twitter/Salon)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Since acquiring Twitter in later October, Elon Musk hasn't been shy about firing people. The Tesla CEO has fired some of Twitter's top executives as well as the company's entire board of directors, and more firings and layoffs are expected.

Twitter, according to NBC News' Ben Collins, is in a state of chaos — and employees, Collins warned, fear that the chaos could make Twitter an unreliable source of information on Election Night, November 8.

Collins, during an MSNBC appearance on Friday, November 4, explained, "The most important thing Twitter employees want to stress is that the company is a nightmare right now, and that you cannot work there — and the website is built on sticks, and it might fall apart. It's a house of cards. If it falls apart by Tuesday, we're in trouble in terms of getting election information out there."

Collins went on to say that Twitter has "cut the moderation staff so severely" that "there is no way they are going to catch up in time" if "lies" and disinformation are posted on Election Night.

"So, using Twitter as a trustworthy source of information on Tuesday is going to be a nightmare," Collins warned. "That's what people inside of Twitter…. are warning about. They go and talk to Elon, who is deeply out of his depth, objectively, and they don't know what's going to happen next week during the United States elections…. I don't mean to sound the alarm quite so severely here, but this could be really bad."

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By Alex Henderson

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