Elon Musk's X platform announced today that it is hiring a new head of security as it comes under constant scrutiny for spreading hate speech, conspiracy theories and other controversial content.
Kylie McRoberts, a nearly four-year veteran of the company formerly known as Twitter, is taking over the company’s global security team. She’s also working to create a new security center in Austin, Texas. The move was announced by CEO Linda Yaccarino in January.
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McRoberts's appointment comes nine months after the company's previous head of security, Ella Irwin, resigned. Irwin oversaw what was then called Trust and Safety, but she resigned after just seven months. Roth, who had succeeded Irwin, resigned just weeks after Musk's acquisition
After taking over from Musk, X waived security measures, reinstated the accounts of white supremacists and other rule violators, and refused to delete racist content.
X announced Tuesday that it has appointed Yale Cohen, a former Publicis Media executive, as its head of brand security and advertising solutions. Cohen’s hire is part of X’s effort to encourage advertisers to return to the platform while maintaining appropriate security.
Both new leaders may face the same challenge that Yaccarino faced in reviving the X brand. Musk has drawn backlash for using X to promote radical, far-right conspiracy theories, such as “Pizzagate” and the racist Great Replacement theory.
In its statement, X cited McRoberts as having worked on the company’s previous security features, including labels that notify users when their content is restricted. Going forward, her team will be responsible for building new products, tools and features to protect our platform and community, maintain security policies and improve methodology and enforcement, X said.
Yaccarino presented security measures , accompanied by other social media company executives. In a document he filed after the hearing, he revealed that X has about 2,300 employees dedicated to security and content moderation, although it is not clear whether all of them are full-time.
McRoberts previously worked in privacy and cybersecurity roles at Google, including efforts to make the web safer. Her background suggests an evolving perspective on “security” at X, focusing less on content preservation, which Musk has been opposed to.
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In a post last month, Musk announced the name change of X's "Trust and Safety" team to simply "Safety.".
Musk said: “Any organization that adds the word ‘Trust’ to its name cannot receive trust, as this is obviously a form of censorship. We are renaming our team from Trust & Safety to simply @Safety. Trust is earned. The goal of the Safety team is to ensure compliance with existing laws to protect people.”
Source: edition.cnn
