Almost two years after the layoffs throughout X’s belief, security and safety groups, Elon Musk’s social media firm is now making an attempt to rent new staff to assist reasonable content material and safe its platform, in line with X’s official job listings.
Within the final month, X posted two dozen job openings evenly break up throughout its security and cybersecurity groups.
The roles on X’s security staff vary from director of strategic response on X’s security staff to authorities affairs managers. On its cybersecurity groups, X is hiring a number of safety engineers and a menace intelligence specialist.
These are small numbers in comparison with the variety of employees Musk laid off following his $44 billion acquisition of the corporate, previously referred to as Twitter, in late 2022. In April 2023, Musk instructed the BBC that Twitter, because it was identified then, lowered its headcount by 6,000 staff in six months, leaving the corporate’s workforce at round 1,500 staff when layoffs had been accomplished.
These cuts had included vital reductions for the corporate’s belief and security staff. In January this yr, following an inquiry from Australia’s on-line security commissioner, X stated that it had laid off 80% of its belief and security employees since Musk’s takeover. X additionally stated in its responses that earlier than Musk’s acquisition, the corporate had 279 engineers on its belief and security groups all over the world, which had been lower right down to 55 by the tip of Could 2023.
General, X stated it lowered its 4,062-strong belief and security staff by nearly a 3rd to 2,849 staff; its full-time content material moderation staff from 107 to 51 staff; and its contracted moderators from 2,613 to 2,305 staff, in line with the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s report on the time.
The latest job listings seem to substantiate that X is making an attempt to additional beef up its security staff following the corporate’s announcement in January that it could create a brand new Belief and Security middle in Austin, Texas, which can embody 100 full-time content material moderators.
9 of the two-dozen jobs posted within the final month point out Austin among the many attainable areas, although the postings additionally embody different cities, like New York Metropolis and Palo Alto, California, plus worldwide places of work like Manila within the Philippines and Delhi in India.
When TechCrunch requested X’s press staff a sequence of questions on these new hires, together with the dimensions of the corporate’s security and cybersecurity groups, the corporate responded with an automatic message: “Busy now, please check back later.”
Departure’s in X’s belief and security and cybersecurity groups haven’t been restricted to its employees, but in addition included senior management. Since Musk took over, each the corporate’s chief cybersecurity officer Lea Kissner and the corporate’s belief and security lead Ella Irwin have left.
The discount in employees on the belief and security and cybersecurity groups seem to have damage X’s capacity to safe itself and its customers, in addition to take care of advanced content material moderation points everywhere in the world.
On Friday, the Supreme Court docket in Brazil basically banned X throughout the nation after Musk refused to take away accounts spreading misinformation. Since taking on as Twitter’s proprietor, Musk himself has been accused of spreading hateful content material and misinformation. On Tuesday, Musk promoted a podcast episode that includes a visitor accused of participating in Holocaust denialism. Additionally this week, Musk posted on X a number of pictures from an AI generator displaying somebody that appears vaguely like Vice President Kamala Harris sporting a beret with the Communist hammer-and-sickle.
On the cybersecurity facet, Musk hosted an X Areas occasion with former President Donald Trump, which crashed and was delayed. Musk blamed the crash — with out offering proof — on “a massive [distributed denial-of-service] attack on X.”
