From the surface, it may not seem like a lot has modified within the repurposed Nineteen Seventies workplace block that serves as Twitter’s European headquarters. But inside, the temper has soured.

Just like within the US, Twitter’s groups throughout Europe have suffered heavy layoffs. Staff in Dublin, Ireland’s 1 Cumberland Place workplace, which used to deal with round 500 Twitter staff, have been utilizing battle terminology to explain the previous week’s occasions. People who stay staff are “survivors,” and colleagues who’ve been let go are “fallen,” says one individual with data of the matter, who requested to stay nameless. The first time staff in Ireland heard from the corporate’s new proprietor, Elon Musk, was on November 10, virtually two weeks after his takeover. In an e-mail, they had been instructed that they might be required to work from the workplace 40 hours per week.

There isn’t any centralized checklist of who has been fired. Instead staff have been their colleagues’ statuses on office messaging app Slack to see if they’re nonetheless working. Dublin is just not the one European workplace to be affected by layoffs. Social media posts present staff in Brussels and London have been let go too. It’s unclear if staff in Twitter’s different European hubs—Hamburg, Madrid, Utrecht, Paris, Berlin and Manchester—have additionally been affected.

In Europe, a significant concern is the destiny of Twitter’s six-to-eight individual group in Brussels, which labored on European coverage and was the principle level of contact with regulators engaged on upcoming laws that might have an effect on all the platform. Only two individuals stay, say two individuals with data of the matter.

That means Twitter has slashed its group because the European Union introduces landmark new know-how guidelines, says Mathias Vermeulen, director of Brussels-based consultancy AWO. “It’s definitely not a good look at a time when so many obligations are going to be imposed on companies, and at a time where regulators expect meaningful relationships with people based in Brussels.” By comparability, Meta and Google make use of between 20 and 30 individuals every within the metropolis, he says. Twitter didn’t reply to WIRED’s request to remark.

Even earlier than the takeover, the corporate was going through a wave of scrutiny throughout the bloc. Trials in opposition to Twitter are pending in France, Germany, and the Netherlands about hate speech, defamation. and privateness. There can be concern in Ireland that Twitter didn’t comply with the nation’s strict employment guidelines whereas finishing up mass layoffs. Ireland’s Tánaiste (or deputy head of the federal government), Leo Varadkar, has nonetheless not acquired a collective redundancy notification in relation to potential redundancies at Twitter as required by regulation, a spokesperson for Ireland’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment instructed WIRED. And there may be rising uneasiness within the European Parliament about Musk’s dedication to adjust to Europe’s new Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts, now that its coverage group in Brussels has been diminished to a skeleton employees.

Europe has been desperate to exhibit that its guidelines maintain weight with the world’s largest tech platforms, Twitter included. In May, European Commissioner Thierry Breton posted a video on Twitter displaying him discussing the Digital Services Act with Elon Musk. “It’s exactly aligned with my thinking,” a respectful Musk mentioned within the clip. Yet Musk’s feedback about free speech and layoffs amongst moderation groups have put Europeans on edge. Trust and Safety, the group accountable for content material moderation, has lost 15 percent of staff worldwide, in response to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity.