Elon Musk's X appoints new head of safety to oversee content rules

By Kurt Wagner and Aisha Counts

X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, appointed a new head of safety to oversee content policies and rules amid changes to the platform that have raised concerns among advertisers.
 

The company promoted an internal employee, Kylie McRoberts, to take on the high-profile job. X also hired Yale Cohen, formerly an executive at Publicis Media, putting him in charge of making sure advertisers feel safe on the service. 

“When we say safety and freedom of speech can and must coexist on X — we mean it. And the safety team works tirelessly, day and night, across the globe to make that happen,” Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino said Tuesday in a companywide email, which was obtained by Bloomberg. 

The company also announced the hires in a post on the platform.

X’s trust and safety division, which oversees the type of content that appears on the site, has faced significant challenges since Elon Musk bought the social media platform in October 2022. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” said he wanted Twitter to be a place where a “wide range of beliefs can be debated in healthy manner.” 

McRoberts will be the third head of trust and safety since Musk took over. The first, Yoel Roth, resigned just weeks after Musk took over the site and has criticized the company for easing standards against misinformation and hateful content. Last June, his successor Ella Irwin also resigned.

The company’s policies on free speech have alienated advertisers who don’t want their ads appearing next to harmful content. Last November, some of X’s major advertisers including Walt Disney Co. and Apple Inc. paused spending on the site after a report found their ads next to pro-Nazi content. X’s advertising revenue was roughly $2.5 billion last year, a decline of about 50 per cent, Bloomberg reported. That hasn’t stopped Musk from supporting content that some find offensive. X is also testing online groups for “adult content” and other types of “not safe for work” material.