Volker Turk, chief of UN rights, requests the new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, to ensure Human Rights around his company after he sued hundreds of employees from his company.
According to reports, Volker Turk did not like how Elon Musk laid off half of the company’s employees. He said, “not, from my perspective, an encouraging start,” in an open letter.
When asked if he was writing with seriousness, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was writing with “concern and apprehension about our digital public square and Twitter’s role in it.”
He even warned the CEO for spreading hate speech and misinformation. He highlighted the need to protect users’ privacy.
After acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk laid off a total of 7500 employees including engineers and added half of his other company’s employees. Many engineers and workers were made to work overtime in a day without any holiday.
“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them,” wrote Turk.
“Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution. In short, I urge you to ensure human rights are central to the management of Twitter under your leadership.”
Volker Turk posted the open letter on his Twitter profile. He has more than 25,000 followers. He urged Elon to respect the rights and privacy and free expression of employees and staff under relevant laws and to provide transparency of work to the government and the general public.
He even added that providing free speech should not entertain false or misinformed news like it happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplifying content that results in harm to people’s rights,” There is no place for hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence on Twitter. Hate speech has spread like wildfire on social media… with horrific, life-threatening consequences.” He said.
Twitter should thus resume barring such hatred on the platform, while every action should be made to subtract such content promptly, said Turk.
He also proclaimed free speech relied on the effective safety of privacy.
“It is vital that Twitter refrain from invasive user tracking and amassing related data and that it resist, to the fullest extent possible under applicable laws, unjustified requests from governments for user data,” Turk said.
He said the analysis was crucial to comprehend the effect of social media on societies, and therefore instructed Musk to maintain access to Twitter’s data through its open application programming interfaces.
Finally, he emphasized that Twitter should have content moderation power in all languages and contexts, not just in the United States or in English-language content.