Twitter is a remote-first workplace, and has operated as such for years. It is a fundamental change to our employment contracts to require a 40hr a week in-office requirement. I do not, personally, believe that Twitter employees have an obligation to return to office. Certainly not on no notice (it at all).
I also remind all Tweeps (at least in the US) that we have an unlimited PTO policy. All Tweeps are able to take PTO. Perhaps today is a good day to take some rest and recharge.
Everyone here should also know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.
Over the last two weeks. Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter. He chose to enter into that agreement! All of us are being put through this as a result of the choices he made.
Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love.
I have heard Alex Spiro (current head of Legal) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.” I have heard another leader in the Legal department say that because of the tight SLA’s (of two weeks?!) between product inception > launch, Legal will “have to shift the burden to engineers” to self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws. This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers: I anticipate that all of you will de pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.
All of this is extremely dangerous for our users. Also, given that the FTC can (and will!) fine Twitter BILLIONS of dollars pursuant to the FTC Consent Order, extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform. Our users deserve so much better than this.
If you feel uncomfortable about anything you’re being asked to do, you can call Twitter’s Ethics Hotline at (800) 275-4843 or submit a report at ethicshelpline.twitter.com. Please also note the FTC’s number is: 1-877-FTC-HELP. You may also remember that Mudge reached out to httos://whistlebloweraid.org
I wish you all luck. It’s been such an honor to work with all of you. And I’ll be taking a day of PTO today. 🫡💙