Twitter

Twitter facilitates digital access for people with disabilities. It also has a dedicated team to integrate accessibility into product development and solicits feedback from the disability community.

Twitter partners with non-profits on NeighborNest, a community space in San Francisco providing training on internet safety and education, as well as career mentorship.

The company follows best practice by publishing a transparency report which includes government requests for user information biannually. Twitter also supports child online safety through its zero-tolerance policy for child online sexual exploitation and its reporting mechanisms.

Twitter shows support for open innovation through its commitment to open-source initiatives, participation in local, regional and international standard-setting bodies and open-source projects. It also contributes to the tech innovation ecosystem by funding venture capital investments, including investments in start-ups founded by women.

Limited evidence was found of the company having impactful initiatives to expand digital opportunities for women and girls. The company should also report how the economic value it generates is distributed among its stakeholders as well as its country-by-country employment and taxes.

Twitter has an opportunity to support more digital skills training programmes.

Little evidence was found of how Twitter assigns senior-level oversight of and accountability for cybersecurity, or how it monitors, remedies and reports on cybersecurity incidents. The company has an opportunity to enhance reporting in this area to increase trust among its stakeholders. The company can also consider adopting a global privacy policy that applies to Twitter and all its subsidiaries.

Twitter can consider enhancing its support for the tech start-up ecosystem by providing mentorship and networking opportunities, as well as organising accelerators and incubators. The company can also enhance transparency on its research and development (R&D) activities, including how it applies ethical considerations, especially in the area of artificial intelligence (AI).

Twitter does not have a publicly available policy document that commits to respecting human rights or the ILO core labour rights. Furthermore, it does not set expectations on its business relationships to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, it does not have a grievance mechanism accessible to all stakeholders to raise human rights complaints and does not disclose a process to identify, assess and act on its salient human rights risks.

Twitter states that it prioritises the safety and well-being of its ‘Tweeps’, but it does not commit to respecting worker health and safety in a formal policy statement. The company does, however, place health and safety expectations on its business relationships, although it does not monitor their performance. In relation to workforce diversity, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender, race and ethnicity, but not age group. Moreover, Twitter lacks relevant disclosure in relation to living wages, working hours and collective bargaining. For example, the company does not disclose if or how it determines living wages for its workers.

As a social media platform, Twitter has scope to publicly commit to protecting personal data as well as publish a global privacy statement. While Twitter discloses the income taxes it pays in three categories – federal, state and foreign – it does not disclose its income tax payments for its individual tax jurisdictions. Furthermore, the company does not disclose a global tax strategy. In relation to lobbying and political engagement, while the company discloses its lobbying expenditures in the United States and the European Union, it does not disclose its global expenditures. Moreover, it does not state that it does not make political contributions. However, Twitter does have a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts and has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic.