A senior Twitter executive responsible for content moderation and safety left the company, her departure coming shortly after owner Elon Musk publicly complained about the platform’s handling of posts about transgender issues.
The departure pointed to a new wave of turmoil among key Twitter officials since Musk took over last year.
Ella Irwin, Twitter’s director of trust and safety, confirmed her resignation in a pair of tweets late Friday. She did not say in the message why she was leaving, but her departure came shortly after Musk criticized Twitter’s handling of tweets about a conservative media company’s documentary challenging transgender medical treatment for children and teenagers.
Musk was responding to complaints from Jeremy Boreing, co-CEO of the Daily Wire media company. Boreing said in tweets and retweets from conservative commentators on Thursday that Twitter was suppressing the film by flagging the posts as hate speech and keeping the film off trending lists.
Boreing tweeted that Twitter canceled a deal to release “What’s a Woman?” for free on the platform “due to two instances of ‘gender misunderstanding'”. Twitter’s rules prohibit intentionally referring to transgender people with the wrong gender or name.
“This was a mistake by many people on Twitter. It’s definitely allowed,” Musk tweeted. “Whether or not you’re okay with using someone’s preferred pronouns, not doing so is, at best, impolite and certainly doesn’t break any laws.”
Irwin tweeted Friday that “one or two people noticed” she left the company the day before, noting speculation that she was fired or resigned. She teased that she would post 24 tweets to explain her departure.
He then posted that he was just kidding about the lengthy narrative.
“In all seriousness, I quit, but this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am so grateful to have worked with this amazing team of passionate, creative, and hard-working people. I’ll be cheering you all on and Twitter as you go!”
Along with Musk, Irwin had been the most prominent voice on the company’s ever-changing content policies in recent months.
Twitter has struggled to bring back advertisers turned away by Musk’s drastic changes and loosening of rules against hate speech since he bought Twitter for $44 billion in October. Twitter also has an incoming CEO, Linda Yaccarino, known for decades of experience in the media and advertising industry, but she hasn’t started yet.
Irwin and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.
Twitter has been in crisis, including mass layoffs and voluntary departures since Tesla’s billionaire owner bought the San Francisco company and took it private. The company’s head of trust and security left shortly after the acquisition, and turnover at the top has continued. Last month, Twitter fired two more top managers.