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Titanium Media Note: This article comes from the WeChat public account Phoenix Network Technology (ID: ifeng_tech), author | Xiao Yu, edited | Ren Qing, published by Titanium Media with permission.
With Elon Musk, the world's richest man, taking over to Twitter to lay off staff and make product adjustments, Twitter is facing layoffs, executive departures and a massive exodus of advertisers.
Twitter announces a 50% layoff: full employee card invalidity
Twitter reportedly confirmed in an email to employees on Thursday that it would begin company-wide layoffs on Friday, and employees would receive an email notification of whether they would be fired by 9 a.m. local time.
According to inside sources and an investor, Twitter will lay off nearly 50 percent of its workforce, though the final figure has not yet been confirmed. Twitter said in an email that the layoffs were intended to put the company on a healthy development path. Twitter also said its offices would be temporarily closed and all badges would be suspended to "help ensure the security of every employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data."
U.S. federal and California law requires companies to give advance notice before mass layoffs, and a spokesman for the California Department of Employment Development said late Thursday local time that the agency had not received such notice from Twitter.
Executives are leaving
Information and public statements revealed by people familiar with the matter indicate that at least five top Twitter executives have left the company in recent days, two of them announced their departures on Twitter on Tuesday. They did not give a reason for their resignation. People familiar with the matter said more executives could leave in the future.
The recently departed executives include Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, Head of Product Jay Sullivan, Chief Client Officer Sarah Personette, who manages the company's relationship with advertisers, Dalana Brand, head of people and diversity, and Nick Caldwell, an executive responsible for core technologies such as infrastructure Caldwell)。
Their departure left Twitter's original management with little left. Don't forget, Musk has fired four executives after completing the Twitter acquisition, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, policy director Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett.
Advertisers flee
At the same time, Musk's entry has also made Twitter advertisers increasingly uneasy. Advertising is Twitter's main source of revenue, accounting for about 90% of Twitter's revenue.
Musk will meet with ad agency executives in New York this week, but he has spooked some advertisers because he has said he will relax Twitter's content moderation rules, which could lead to a surge in disinformation and other toxic content.
IPG, one of the world's largest advertising agencies, issued a recommendation on Monday through its media outlets, calling on customers to temporarily suspend spending on Twitter due to content moderation concerns, according to three people familiar with the matter. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media also said this week that it is watching how Twitter plans to handle content moderation. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media is a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups dedicated to combating harmful content on social media.
Twitter chief customer officer Paysonette met with Musk last week to discuss Twitter's advertising partnership. Musk then released an open letter to advertisers, saying Twitter would not become a "hellish place to do whatever you want." He also said Twitter would set up a committee to advise on content trials. In a tweet announcing her departure, Peisenette said she believed Musk's team "understands the importance of upholding the standards set by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media."
IPG is a holding company with multiple agencies that handle advertising spend, and its clients include American Express, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, toy maker Mattel and Spotify. Its Allied Advertising division manages approximately $40 billion in marketing investments worldwide.
Katie Klumper, CEO of IPG's consulting firm Black Glass, said the company surveyed many customers, including Walmart, PepsiCo and Cadillac, and most said they planned to pause spending on Twitter until they were clearer and more confident about where the platform was headed.
Boycott Twitter
On Tuesday, more than 40 civil rights groups sent an open letter to Twitter's 20 top advertisers, urging them to suspend ads on Twitter if they found Musk had abandoned the platform's content moderation safeguards. The letter, organized by Free Press and American Media Affairs, signed by organizations such as GLAAD and naacp, was sent to CEOs of companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, CBS, Coca-Cola, Disney, Mondelēz International and Procter & Gamble.
Civil rights groups | called on advertisers such as Apple to boycott Twitter
"Even if Musk only accomplishes a fraction of what he promises, Twitter will not and cannot be a safe platform for brands," the groups said in the letter. ”
Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of digital rights group Accountable Tech, said: "Musk is an unpredictable billionaire who has promised to remove key safeguards imposed by Twitter and return to the platform the extremists who have repeatedly spread hate, incited violence, and undermined our democracy. ”