<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Elon Musk's Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The council had been scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives Monday night. But Twitter informed the group via email that it was disbanding it shortly before the meeting was to take place, according to multiple members.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The council members, who provided images of the email from Twitter to The Associated Press, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“Our work to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said the email, which was signed “Twitter.”</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The volunteer group provided expertise and guidance on how Twitter could better combat hate, harassment and other harms but didn’t have any decision-making authority and didn’t review specific content disputes.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was a group of volunteers who over many years gave up their time when consulted by Twitter staff to offer advice on a wide range of online harms and safety issues," tweeted council member Alex Holmes. “At no point was it a governing body or decision making.”</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Twitter, which is based in San Francisco, had confirmed the meeting with the council Thursday in an email in which it promised an “open conversation and Q&amp;A” with Twitter staff, including the new head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">That came on the same day that three council members announced they were resigning in a public statement posted on Twitter that said that “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Those former council members soon became the target of online attacks after Musk amplified criticized of them and Twitter’s past leadership for allegedly not doing enough to stop child sexual exploitation on the platform.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!” Musk tweeted.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">A growing number of attacks on the council led to concerns from some remaining members who sent an email to Twitter on Monday demanding the company stop misrepresenting its role.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Those false accusations by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and former Council members,” the email said.</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The Trust and Safety Council, in fact, had as one of its advisory groups one that focused on child exploitation. This included the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children, the Rati Foundation and YAKIN, or Youth Adult Survivors &amp; Kin in Need. AP/UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>