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Twitter confirmed that it is combining its health experience team, which focuses on misinformation and harmful content, and its service team, tasked with reviewing profiles reported by users and removing spam accounts, into one team, which it is calling health products and services.
Vice president of product for health and Twitter service Ella Irwin will lead the HPS team, and she said in an email to staff, obtained by Sheila Dang of Reuters, “We need teams to focus on specific problems, working together as one team and no longer operating in silos.”
A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed the move, saying, “Today’s reorganization reflects our continued commitment to prioritize and focus our teams in pursuit of our goals. Stopping bad actors and creating more transparency around how we support a healthy platform, while also helping promote and encourage diverse thoughts and conversations, continues to be foundational to everything we do and how we organize our teams.”
Twitter has been under intense scrutiny in these areas due to Elon Musk’s attempt to scuttle his $44 billion acquisition of the company over concerns about bots, fake accounts and spam, as well as the bombshell complaint filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission by former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, which accused the company of violating its agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to maintain solid security practices and prioritizing user growth over controlling bots, fake accounts and spam.
Dang reported that a current employee did not believe the reorganization would have a significant impact, while a former employee who worked on security was similarly not optimistic that it would help matters, telling Dang the platform’s spam issues run too deep for one team to manage on its own.
