CALIFORNIA: Twitter Inc. laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.
Tweets by staff of the social media company said teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics were among those gutted, as were some product and engineering teams.
The move caps a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” from the advertiser retreat.
Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation — concerns heightened ahead of potential pivotal congressional elections on Tuesday.
After the layoffs, the groups said they were escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally.
“Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Musk tweeted of the layoffs, adding that everyone affected was offered three months of severance pay.
The company was silent about the depth of the cuts until late in the day, when head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth tweeted confirmation of internal plans, seen by Reuters earlier in the week, projecting the layoffs would affect about 3,700 people, or 50 percent of the staff.
Among those let go were 784 employees from the company’s San Francisco headquarters and 199 in San Jose and Los Angeles, according to filings to California’s employment authority.
Roth said the reductions hit about 15 percent of his team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and other harmful content, and that the company’s “core moderation capabilities” remained in place.
Musk endorsed the safety executive last week, citing his “high integrity” after Roth was called out over tweets critical of former President Donald Trump years earlier.
Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.” But major advertisers have expressed apprehension about his takeover for months.
Brands including General Motors Co. and General Mills Inc. have said they stopped advertising on Twitter while awaiting information about the new direction of the platform.
Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done “everything we could” to appease the groups. Speaking at an investors conference in New York on Friday, Musk called the activist pressure “an attack on the First Amendment.”
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT
The email notifying staff about layoffs was the first communication Twitter workers received from the company’s leadership after Musk took over last week. It was signed only by “Twitter,” without naming Musk or any other executives.
Dozens of staffers tweeted they had lost access to work email and Slack channels overnight before receiving an official layoff notice on Friday morning, prompting an outpouring of laments by current and former employees on the platform they had built.
They shared blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees had used for years to celebrate the company’s work culture.
Twitter’s curation team, which was responsible for “highlighting and contextualizing the best events and stories that unfold on Twitter,” had been axed, employees wrote.
Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter’s acting head of human rights, tweeted that the entire human rights team at the company had been sacked.
Another team that focused on research into how Twitter employed machine learning and algorithms, an issue that was a priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet from a former senior manager at Twitter.
Senior executives including vice president of engineering Arnaud Weber said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday: “Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I’m proud of what we accomplished.”
Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the handle “SillyRobin” who had indicated they were laid off, quote-tweeted a previous Musk tweet saying Twitter Blue would include “paywall bypass” for certain publishers.
“Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this,” the employee said.
DOORS LOCKED
Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be temporarily closed and badge access suspended “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”
Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.
A receptionist at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters said a few people had trickled in and were working in the floors above despite the notice to stay away.
A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by several employees, who argued the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of federal and California law.
The lawsuit asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.
Twitter lays off staff as Musk blames activists for ‘massive’ ad revenue drop
https://arab.news/4ce32
Twitter lays off staff as Musk blames activists for ‘massive’ ad revenue drop
- Twitter employees vented their frustrations about the layoffs on the social network, using the hashtag #OneTeam
Israel detains Palestinian journalist amid press freedom concerns
- Ali Al-Samudi, 58, would remain in custody until October due to ‘considerations for the security of the region and public safety,’ Israeli military said
RAMALLAH: Israel’s military said on Thursday it would hold a Palestinian journalist arrested last month in administrative detention, raising fresh concerns over press freedom.
Ali Al-Samudi, 58, would remain in custody until October due to “considerations for the security of the region and public safety,” the military said in a newly published decree.
The Palestinian Commission for Detainees and the Palestinian Prisoners Club denounced the decision and Samudi’s treatment since his arrest on April 29.
His detention, they said in a joint statement, was part of Israel’s increasing use of administrative detention against journalists since the Gaza war began.
They said the practice had “intensified dramatically.”
Samudi is a freelance journalist who works with several outlets, including Al Jazeera.
He was with Shireen Abu Akleh when she was killed by gunfire in Jenin on May 11, 2022. He was shot and wounded in the shoulder.
The Prisoners Club says Israel has detained 50 Palestinian journalists since the Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023, with 20 held under administrative detention.
The practice, a legacy of the British Mandate, allows Israel to detain people without charge, with detentions renewable indefinitely.
The commission and the club held Israel responsible for Samudi’s life and fate, saying he “suffers from several health issues and previous injuries.”
The Journalists’ Syndicate and Palestinian human rights organizations have reported the killing of more than 200 journalists in the Gaza Strip.
Other journalists have gone missing during the ongoing war, while Israel continues to prevent foreign journalists from entering Gaza.
In a statement published last week, the Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association noted that “never in Israel’s history has the government imposed sweeping restrictions on the media for such an extended period.”
Between 2024 and 2025, Israel went down 11 places on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, from 101 to 112 respectively.
Israel attacks kill 2 Gaza journalists in separate operations
- Yahya Subaih died hours after posting photo of newborn daughter
- Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was killed in separate attack
LONDON: Palestinian journalist Yahya Subaih was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City on Wednesday, just hours after celebrating the birth of his daughter.
Subaih was among at least 11 people killed when Israeli warplanes struck a restaurant in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, west of Gaza City. Dozens more were injured in the attack, according to local media reports.
Another local journalist, Nour Abdu, was reportedly killed while covering an attack early on Wednesday morning at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City.
That strike killed 16 people, according to officials at Al-Ahli Hospital, while strikes in other areas killed at least 16 others.
The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned what it described as the “systematic targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists,” and called on the international community to act.
In a statement, the office urged global powers “to put serious and effective pressure to stop the crime of genocide, protect journalists and media professionals in the Gaza Strip, and stop the crime of killing and assassinating them.”
Subaih, who worked with multiple media outlets, had shared a photo on social media just hours before his death, cradling his newborn daughter. “A little princess has brightened our world,” he wrote.
Footage circulating online shows Subaih wearing the same clothes he wore in the photo with his daughter.
Palestinian journalist Yahya Subaih was blessed today with a beautiful baby girl who was waiting to see the light in her parents' arms. However, Zionist criminality overtook her father and killed him a short while ago in the new Gaza massacre.
— Abdul Aziz Khadra (@EabdaieazizK) May 7, 2025
Journalist Yahya Subaih is a… pic.twitter.com/b8juYBfYJh
His death adds to the growing number of media professionals killed in Gaza, which has become the most dangerous place in the world for journalists since Israel’s war on the enclave began on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to the Costs of War project by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the current conflict is the deadliest ever recorded for journalists.
More than 170 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began, with some estimates placing the figure as high as 214.
The overall death toll from Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has surpassed 52,000 people, most of them women and children, with more than 118,000 injured, according to the territory’s health authorities.
Renowned journalists receive prestigious MCF Awards in Dubai
- Recipients include Asharq’s Nabeel Alkhatib, MBC’s Ali Jaber, The National’s Mina Al-Oraibi and social program presenter Sarah Dundarawy
- The MCF recognizes the work of Arab, international media figures
DUBAI: Renowned media figures Dr. Nabeel Alkhatib and Ali Jaber were among the recipients of the prestigious May Chidiac Foundation Media Awards during a ceremony held in Dubai’s Al-Habtoor City on Wednesday.
Alkhatib, general manager of Asharq News, received the Antoine Choueiri’s Special Tribute for Lifetime Achievement Award, while Jaber, chief content officer of MBC and Shahid, took the MCF Special Recognition for Pioneering Leadership in the Media Industry Award.
Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of The National, took the Excellence in Media Award.
Sarah Dundarawy, Saudi Arabia journalist and presenter at Al Arabiya’s social program “tafa3olcom”, received the Outstanding Media Performance award.
In its third edition in Dubai, the MCF recognized the work of distinguished Arab and international media figures.
The Exceptional Courage in Journalism Award for Life Sacrifices went to the late Marie Colvin, an American war correspondent for the Sunday Times, who was killed while covering the siege of Homs in Syria in 2012.
Pascale Bourgaux, a war reporter, author and filmmaker, received the Engaged Journalist Award.
The Vision in Content Development Award went to the Dubai-based BLINX, the first digital-native storytelling hub in the Middle East and North Africa.
Founded by journalist and former Lebanese Minister for Administrative Development May Chidiac, the foundation is a nonprofit organization.
It is dedicated to research and development in various media fields, including international affairs, women’s rights, democracy and social welfare.
It is also aimed at establishing Lebanon as a proactive player in the Middle East and global economy.
Apple’s plan to offer AI search options on Safari a blow to Google dominance
- Apple could add OpenAI, Perplexity as future search options
- The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value
Apple’s plans to add AI-powered search options to its Safari browser are a big blow to Google, whose lucrative advertising business relies significantly on iPhone customers using its search engine.
The news slammed shares of Google-parent Alphabet, which closed down 7.3 percent, wiping off roughly $150 billion from its market value.
The iPhone maker was “actively looking at” reshaping Safari, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, citing Apple executive Eddy Cue who was offering testimony at an antitrust case on Wednesday over Google’s dominance in online search.
Cue said searches on Safari fell for the first time last month due to users increasingly turning to AI, according to the source. Apple stock closed down 1.1 percent.
Google said that it continued to see growth in the overall number of search queries, including “total queries coming from Apple’s devices and platforms,” according to a statement posted on the company’s blog.
“People are seeing that Google Search is more useful for more of their queries — and they’re accessing it for new things and in new ways,” the company wrote.
Google cited voice and visual search features as contributors to total search volume growth. It was unclear whether Cue was using the same basis of comparison in his testimony when analizing types of searches.
Still, the Apple executive’s comments suggests that a seismic shift in search is likely underway, threatening Google’s dominant search business — a go-to advertising destination for marketers that has now become a target for US antitrust regulators, which filed two major lawsuits against the company.
Google is the default search engine on Apple’s browser, a coveted position for which it pays the iPhone maker roughly $20 billion a year, or about 36 percent of its search advertising revenue generated through the Safari browser, analysts have estimated.
Banning Google from paying companies to be the default search engine is among the remedies that the US Justice Department has proposed to break up its dominance in online search.
“The loss of exclusivity at Apple should have very severe consequences for Google even if there are no further measures,” D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.
“Many advertisers have all of their search advertising with Google because it is practically a monopoly with almost 90 percent share. If there were other viable alternatives for search, many advertisers could move much of their ad budgets away from Google,” Luria said.
Google is not defenseless.
Written off as an also-ran in the AI race by critics after ChatGPT’s buzzy launch in late 2022, Google has reached into its deep pockets to fund its AI efforts and leverage its vast data trove.
The company introduced an “AI mode” on its search page earlier this year, looking to retain its millions of users from going away to other AI models.
It recently expanded AI Overviews — summaries that appear atop the traditional hyperlinks to relevant webpages on a search query — for users in more than 100 countries, and added advertisements to feature, boosting Search ad sales.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a testimony at an antitrust trial last month that Google hopes to enter an agreement with Apple by the middle of this year to include its Gemini AI technology on new phones.
Apple’s Cue on Wednesday also said the company would add AI search providers, including OpenAI and Perplexity AI, as search options in the future, Bloomberg reported.
“(Apple’s plan) also shows how far generative search sites, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity have come,” said Yory Wurmser, principal analyst for advertising, media & technology at eMarketer.
That Google is willing to pay tens of billions of dollars to remain the default search engine shows how crucial the agreements are, Wurmser said.
For instance, ChatGPT in April reported seeing over 1 billion weekly web searches for its search feature. It has more than 400 million weekly active users, as of February
Meta blocks access to Muslim news page in India
- The affected Instagram account, @Muslim, has a page with 6.7 million followers
- Meta blocked the account by legal request of the Indian government, says founder
WASHINGTON: Meta has banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at the government’s request, the account’s founder said Wednesday, denouncing the move as “censorship” as hostilities escalate between India and Pakistan.
Instagram users in India trying to access posts from the handle @Muslim — a page with 6.7 million followers — were met with a message stating: “Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.”
There was no immediate reaction from the Indian government on the ban, which comes after access was blocked to the social media accounts of Pakistani actors and cricketers.
“I received hundreds of messages, emails and comments from our followers in India, that they cannot access our account,” Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh, the news account’s founder and editor-in-chief, said in a statement.
“Meta has blocked the @Muslim account by legal request of the Indian government. This is censorship.”
Meta declined to comment. A spokesman for the tech giant directed AFP to a company webpage outlining its policy for restricting content when governments believe material on its platforms goes “against local law.”
The development, first reported by the US tech journalist Taylor Lorenz’ outlet User Magazine, comes in the wake of the worst violence between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan in two decades.
Both countries have exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival.
At least 43 deaths were reported in the fighting, which came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Pakistan rejects the charge and has warned it will “avenge” those killed by Indian air strikes.
The @Muslim account is among the most followed Muslim news sources on Instagram. Khatahtbeh apologized to followers in India, adding: “When platforms and countries try to silence media, it tells us that we are doing our job in holding those in power accountable.”
“We will continue to document the truth and stand out firmly for justice,” he added, while calling on Meta to reinstate the account in India.
India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading “provocative” content, including Pakistani news outlets.
In recent days, access to the Instagram account of Pakistan’s former prime minister and cricket captain Imran Khan has also been blocked in India.
Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam were also off limits in India, as well as a wide range of cricketers — including star batters Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and retired players Shahid Afridi and Wasim Akram.
Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have also unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the Indian strikes.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump called for India and Pakistan to immediately halt their fighting, and offered to help end the violence.
