SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A top Twitter executive responsible for security and content moderation has left the company. Her departure came shortly after owner Elon Musk publicly complained about the platform’s handling of posts on transgender issues.
The departure heralded a new wave of unrest among key Twitter officials since Musk took office last year.
Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety at Twitter, confirmed her resignation in two tweets late Friday. She didn’t say why she was leaving in the message, but her departure came shortly after Musk criticized Twitter’s handling of tweets about a conservative media outlet’s documentary questioning the medical treatment of transgender children and youth.
Musk was responding to complaints from Jeremy Boreing, co-CEO of the media company Daily Wire. Boreing said Thursday in tweets and retweets from conservative commenters that Twitter was suppressing the film by labeling posts about it as hate speech and removing the film from its trending topics list.
Boreing tweeted that Twitter had canceled a deal to premiere “What is a Woman?” free on the platform “because of two cases of ‘misgendering'”. The Twitter Rules prohibit intentionally referring to transgender people with the wrong gender or name.
“That was a mistake made by a lot of people on Twitter. “It’s definitely allowed,” Musk tweeted back. “Whether or not you’re okay with using someone else’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is rude at best and certainly doesn’t break any laws.”
Irwin tweeted Friday that “a person or two would have noticed” that she had left the company the day before, and she took note of speculation about whether she was fired or terminated. She teased that she would post 24 tweets to explain her departure.
She then posted that she was only joking with the lengthy narrative.
“Seriously, I quit, but it was a once in a lifetime experience and I am so grateful to have worked with such an amazing team of passionate, creative and hardworking people. I’ll be cheering for you all and tweeting along the way!”
Aside from Musk, Irwin has been the most prominent voice of the company’s ever-changing content policies in recent months.
Ever since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, Twitter has been struggling to win back advertisers who have been put off by Musk’s drastic changes and relaxation of the rules against hate speech. Twitter also has a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, who is known for decades of experience in the media and advertising industries but hasn’t started yet.
Irwin and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Since the billionaire Tesla owner bought the San Francisco-based company and privatized it, Twitter has seen unrest, including mass layoffs and voluntary departures. The company’s head of trust and safety left the company shortly after the acquisition, and turnover in the top ranks continued. Last month, Twitter fired two more top executives.