Twitter To 'Ruthlessly Prioritize' Tackling Toxic Content, Spam Bots Amid Whistleblower Allegations

Twitter Inc TWTR is reportedly merging teams that tackle toxic content and spam bots and forming a new group in order to “ruthlessly prioritize” such tasks.

What Happened: The Jack Dorsey-founded company will amalgamate its health-experience team with its service team to form a new group called “Health Products and Services (HPS),” reported Reuters, citing an e-mail sent to employees.

The health experience team dealt with reducing misinformation and harmful content while the service team worked on tackling spam.

Ella Irwin, vice president of health and Twitter service, will lead the newly formed HPS, according to Reuters. 

Irwin reportedly told employees that the company “need teams to focus on specific problems, working together as one team and no longer operating in silos.” 

The executive said that HPS will "ruthlessly prioritize" its projects.

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Why It Matters: Twitter is facing allegations from its former head of security Peiter "Mudge" Zatko that it misled regulators about its security practices and spam controls.

Zatko also alleged the company is unable to protect its large daily user base which includes prominent figures, heads of states and government agencies.

A former Twitter employee said he was not optimistic that the reshuffle could improve the situation with spam as Twitter’s problems are greater than what can be managed by one team, according to Reuters. 

At the same time, the social media platform is engaged with Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk in a court battle surrounding the latter walking away from a buyout deal.

Price Action: On Tuesday, Twitter shares closed 7.3% lower at $39.86 in the regular session and gained 0.4% in extended trading, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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