In the midst of the ongoing legal battle against Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Twitter is combining its team that fights misinformation and harmful content with the team that handles eliminating spam accounts.
Twitter will refer to its new division as “Health Products and Services (HPS),” according to Tech Crunch.
Twitter acknowledged the news and announced that Ella Irwin, the company’s VP of Product, will be in charge of this team.
However, Twitter made no mention of how these teams will collaborate or how it may affect the micro-blogging platform’s handling of false information or spam.
In a statement to TechCrunch, Twitter said, “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.”
This news was released soon after it became known that Zatko had reported his former employer as a whistleblower.
In it, he claimed that Twitter’s security has “severe, glaring weaknesses” and that it favours user growth over eliminating spam.
Soon after Zatko’s accusation, which also raises issues of national security, was covered by The Washington Post, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle declared that they were looking into his allegations.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal defended the company in an email to staff members, reiterating the Twitter spokesperson’s claim that Zatko’s complaint is “a false narrative that is plagued with contradictions and errors.”