Vijaya Gadde

2022 - 4 - 26

Jameela Jamil

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Politico"

Twitter's top lawyer reassures staff, cries during meeting about Musk ... (Politico)

Vijaya Gadde, a key executive involved in decisions to remove former President Donald Trump and ban political advertising, expressed uncertainty about the ...

“At times, this takes the form of hateful speech in tweets directed at women or minority groups; at others, it takes the form of threats aimed to intimidate those who take a stand on issues.” She faced a renewed wave of criticism after multiple reports confirmed she was behind the decision to ban Trump from Twitter. That would be a huge shift for the company, which has spent years creating elaborate guidelines to reduce the amount of vitriolic and threatening content on its platform. Musk has called for Twitter to truly embrace free speech and has advocated for open-sourcing Twitter’s algorithm and removing all spam bots from the platform. Gadde, who has worked at Twitter since 2011, is the key executive charged with overseeing Twitter’s trust and safety, legal and public policy functions. I think this was more of an acknowledgment of the uncertainty everyone is feeling right now.”

Twitter's Vijaya Gadde is trolled following Elon Musk's tweet (Quartz)

Twitter users flooded Vijaya Gadde's mentions with sexist and racist vitriol, even tagging CEO Parag Agrawal.

CEO Parag Agrawal, himself of Indian origin, was also enveloped in some of the attacks. “Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk told YouTuber Saagar Enjeti on April 27. After Musk’s remark, other Twitter users started trolling the Indian-born policy chief.

Musk slams Indian-origin Twitter legal head Vijaya Gadde over ... (Business Standard)

Read more about Musk slams Indian-origin Twitter legal head Vijaya Gadde over 'censorship' on Business-standard. Gadde, who has been working with Twitter ...

More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world.

Top Twitter lawyer cried with employees discussing Musk buy: report (Business Insider)

Twitter attorney Vijaya Gadde, a "moral authority" at the company, cried while discussing Elon Musk's acquisition with employees, Politico reported.

"If you look up the word 'inspiring' in the dictionary you find a picture of @vijaya," tweeted Kennedy O'Brien, a public policy associate at Twitter. "Vijaya is at the crossroads of some of the most important policy decisions the company is making and how it interacts with governments around the world," Adam Bain, Twitter's former COO who worked with Gadde before he left in 2016, told CNN Business. On Monday, Gadde met virtually with employees she supervises in legal and policy to discuss the buy, Politico reported. Gadde was a driver behind that decision, CNN Business reported in 2021, as did others at the time it occurred. Employees asked about everything from potential layoffs to the reactivation of Trump's Twitter account in an all-hands meeting on Monday, where CEO Parag Agrawal acknowledged that there wasn't a ton of certainty about the platform's future. Twitter's top attorney and a key voice in decisions such as barring President Donald Trump from the platform became emotional and cried in a meeting with employees discussing Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform on Monday, Politico reported.

Will Elon Musk Fire Vijaya Gadde? Top Twitter Lawyer Condemned ... (Newsweek)

"Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate," Musk tweeted.

We need to do a better job combating abuse without chilling or silencing speech," she wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2015. Gadde is the platform's head of legal, policy and trust and her teams are tasked with deciding how to moderate content. Gadde has advocated for ensuring Twitter's policies protect users while preserving free speech.

Elon Musk boosts criticism of Twitter executives, prompting online ... (The Washington Post)

The targeting of employees by Musk's massive Twitter megaphone is a major concern for workers.

They surfaced anti-Trump tweets from three years prior and claimed he was responsible for the decision to label the former president’s misleading tweets, prompting a barrage of personal attacks. Musk launched a hostile takeover bid for Twitter two weeks ago, citing a desire to restore “free speech” to the platform. Twitter users quickly piled onto the criticism of Gadde, including calling on Musk to fire her and using racist language to describe her. “My criticism of her for a policy she publicly has defended is in no way responsible for what some rando account may say to her,” he tweeted. Musk’s response Tuesday was the first time he targeted specific Twitter executives by using his nearly singular ability to call attention to topics that interest him. During the 2020 presidential election, Twitter temporarily blocked a New York Post story on Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter that it said violated a policy against posting hacked materials.