Elon Musk’s Twitter was left out of an important meet with the UK regulator for online safety rules even though Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Bytedance Ltd’s TikTok, were active participants. UK Regulator spent the whole of last week in US meeting executives to discuss implementing the sweeping online safety rules in the United Kingdom.
The conspicuous omission of Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc from the meet seemed to have been caused following the Tesla CEO’s overhaul at the micro-blogging platform’s headquarters. The chaos that saw roughly half of Twitter’s global workforce get laid off, also included all the representatives in touch with Ofcom.
The scheduled meeting with the UK regulator fell through because these representatives either quit or were laid off from Elon Musk’s Twitter, Bloomberg quoted two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the plans were private.
Elon Musk’s dramatically instigated restructuring cut the firm’s headcount in half and triggered others to quit, including head of trust and safety Yoel Roth.
“We met with a range of platforms in the US, but Twitter wasn’t among them for this trip,” an Ofcom spokesman said by phone to Bloomberg. The two sides couldn’t make the diaries work, he said in a follow-up email.
Despite the sudden departures, engagement between Ofcom and Twitter hasn’t stopped entirely, one of the people said.
It’s the latest sign of how Musk’s Twitter takeover has interrupted important activity at the company at a time when it’s attracting regulatory scrutiny.
During the US trip, Ofcom’s Chief Executive Officer Melanie Dawes and director of online content Kevin Bakhurst met a wide range of firms that might be subject to the UK’s Online Safety Bill, expected to come into force next year. Meetings included Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Roblox, Vimeo, Pinterest, Patreon, Eventbrite and Tripadvisor, the regulator said in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday.
The bill has not been finalized yet but will require companies that host user-generated content to show how they protect users or face large fines.
Bakhurst had previously expressed concerns about Twitter’s job cuts.
“The company seems to be losing some of the most important and talented people — including in content moderation and public policy,” he tweeted earlier this month. “Online safety regulation is coming in the UK and the EU. I don’t understand the strategy.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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