Twitter safety chief resigns after Musk criticizes decision to restrict film

Ella Irwin is second trust and safety chief to quit since Musk bought Twitter.

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[TheMolesRevenge]

Thank you for the re-write of this article.

 

[kheftel]

Really glad you guys chose to re-write the article.

 

[Litazia]

Thank you.

 

[darkdog]

The previous, sad excuse of an article and its letdown of an edit stayed up for way too long.

Still, I'm very, very glad you made the effort to rewrite it, and that the rewrite is finally up to the standards I've come to expect from Ars. Thank you.

 

[Resolute]

A much better article, thank you.

And one that helps us put focus on the fact that this is Elon Musk, once again, pushing transphobic hate. And once again, a reminder to any organization or user that while the best time to leave Twitter was in the past, the second best time is right now.

 

[DirtyAussie]

A genuine thank you for the rewrite. This article now matches the topic.

 

[babblinggeek]

This is the article I expected to find under the heading. Thank you for fixing it.

 

[co-lee]

This is now a good article. And appreciate what appears to be actual self-reflection and a real apology at the end.

 

[Coppercloud]

Thank you.

 

[Basil Forthrightly]

I'll point out that not only do people transition, the people and organizations around them - whether supportive or not - do too, and what's considered "good support" evolves and is often a constantly moving target.

I'll look for Ars to be "doing better" in the future; one of the bigger issues for the dedicated commentariat was how a shitshow of comment thread was allowed to get rolling, and then stand - locked - over the weekend. I appreciate the economic constraints on publishers, but y'all need to work out some way of having an "escalating response system", with fallback modes.

Dealing with a meltdown can't all be on the shoulders of one person; they're entitled to time off, a real life, and not having to worry about the job when a personal emergency is happening to them.

And, speaking as a developer, it's figuring out how to deal with the "shouldn't happen" bad things actually do happen that distinguishes the pros from the amateurs.

 

[rabidk]

Thank you for re-writing the article to bring it up to the usual standards of journalism we expect to find here at Ars.

 

[Deleted member 349585]

Much better, thanks.

 

[Resolute]

Just to add... it is genuinely refreshing to see a public apology that accepts hurt was caused. Far too often we see a "sorry if you were offended" non-apology. Kudos to Ken and Eric for being willing to face this head on with not only what appears to be a sincere apology, but also showing an outline of a plan for imporovement.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

For easy reference, The Daily Wire is a right-wing disinformation and hate platform created by Ben Shapiro. Matt Walsh, who created the video that sparked these Twitter resignations, is a contributor to the cesspit. Walsh is so virulently anti-trans he's stated he'd rather die than have a trans child, and has said he'd prefer to see doctors providing medical transition care to be executed. His toxicity is a never-ending poison well that helps the right-wing kill people who deserve to live and be happy.

You can guess that his film is not going to be an introspective journey about coming to terms with the mainstream psychiatric and medical position that trans care is almost universally beneficial, dramatically cuts suicide rates among trans people, and that "de-transitioning" or regret for undergoing the procedures is EXTREMELY rare (on the order of 1%). If you think the movie will present the exact opposite of this reality, you're probably right.

This is what Musk was drumming up support for, apparently over the objections of his own VPs of both community and product safety. Musk's mission to turn a thriving social media service into 8$chan continues apace.




Thank you, Ars, for taking the time to pull the original version of this story and for giving it a much better treatment. There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of ground to cover from here. I hope Ars does become a place that people can trust to reflect truth and compassion on issues like this.

And I especially want to thank the non-cis members of the Ars community who took a stand and spoke up, loudly, in defense of their own dignity. It sucks that this happened. I'm grateful to all of you for being there and saying "no, this is not okay." The rest of us owe you so much and the very least we can do is listen. I know I've learned a lot from what you've shared. Our community is poorer for being deprived of those that said enough is too much.

 

[buymysoul]

Thank you very much for the new edit. It demonstrates a true ability to listen to your audience and admit mistakes. I especially appreciate your commitment to do better in the future. I fortunately didn't see the previous version until yesterday (after the initial edits) and am appreciative that you reevaluated those and actually fixed the issues.

 

[Snarky Robot]

Thank you for the edit AND for promising to do more moving forward. Reevaluating how you approach topics like this is necessary. I’ve started and deleted many comments on the subject, because I’m trying to come to grips with whether my own position is worthwhile. Every time I’ve gone to post, I’ve deleted it, because I don’t have a firm grasp on that.

Having staff that are willing to do that, on a corporate level, is good. I hope you find a way forward that meets the standards of those most affected by transphobia.

 

[Veyka]

Thank you for listening and the genuine apology.

 

[Peevester]

Much better. However, it's not good enough that you rewrote the article - this needs to happen much, much more quickly. If you post articles Friday evenings, have a friendly editor on hand on Friday nights to address any problems on the spot, and don't leave it to your terminally overworked moderators, since they can only do things that make the situation worse, like locking comments, which also cements voting and left some heinous shit visible for DAYS.

I specifically stopped subscribing because I was sick and tired of the "we don't have anyone who can do anything off hours" situation. If Ars wants to be a real source for journalism, they need to understand the concept of coverage, and doubly understand that any published article is ALWAYS a first draft that is destroying your reputation for every minute that it's left in a bad state.

Please fix this, and tell us what you've done to fix it, not what you plan to do. Then I might consider subscribing again. Otherwise it's just words we've heard before.

 

[LizandreBZH]

Better.

And now to one of the cores of the issue : is Musk enacting a personal revenge on one of his children ?

 

[lucubratory]

Just wanted to say thank you and I appreciate it for the quality of writing on this article, and I appreciate the extra text at the end too. This is much better.

 

[itsawossname]

Thank you for the re-written article, as well as the acknowledgement of pain caused. As others have said, it's really good to see a genuine apology, so very well done there.

I am still disappointed with how long the response took. I'm also a bit troubled by the fact that the updated article simply replaced the original, as it was already well off the front page. The revision and very well-worded apology are already buried in the depths of the site, so it would be really great to see a "revised/updated" version back on the front page to draw proper attention to what should have been the original article in the first place.

But I will say - the challenge was for Ars to do better and this is a really good first step, so thank you.

 

[Arcturus]

Adding to the chorus, thank you for a solid rewrite and real apology. Slow out of the gate and needs to be followed through on, but a good step in the right direction.

 

[Spunjji]

Thanks to the Ars team for a rewrite that actually has some teeth. I didn't get to see the first version of the article (or comment before it was locked down), but I saw the first rewrite, and it still gave the impression that the transphobic nature of Walsh's propaganda piece was debatable. As such I fully agreed with criticism of it. This is a much better effort and I appreciate both the withdrawal of the older articles and the clarification below the main text. That's rare to see, and that's why I still subscribe to Ars while other subscriptions have lapsed.

I anticipate there may yet be some pushback from the sort of people who flock to transphobic articles and spam rhetoric like "nothing but facts", as they suffer from an allergy to their prejudice being accurately diagnosed. I hope that nobody in the editorial or journalistic staff has to deal with anything too direct.

 

[Deleted member 853683]

Thanks for doing the right thing here, Ars.

 

[KobayashiSaru]

Not gonna lie, the previous article had me ready to cancel my Ars subscription, but the way this has been handled has ensured I'll keep it. I do hope this incident has prompted a policy review to prevent future problems like this, though.

I expected better of Ars (and you seem to have stepped up in response), but I also expected better of certain community members.