The communications department of Twitter in Germany no longer exists since Elon Musk took over the social media group.
This was explained by the former head of the department, who is complaining about his dismissal before the Hamburg labor court.
The former head of press and public relations said at a court hearing that the dissolution of the team — reminiscent of that of the Brussels branch — would affect Twitter's operations in Germany.
It is "very difficult" to handle external communication in German via the EMEA headquarters in Dublin.
Twitter's lawyer countered that the dismissal was a result of several corporate reorganizations under new leadership.
European authorities have been watching Twitter with eagle eyes since Musk's $44 billion takeover, especially when it comes to legal standards.
Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton warned the new owner hours after the deal was closed that he had to comply with EU rules.
The federal government regards developments on Twitter since Musk's takeover as "quite problematic" and is still in the process of reviewing its stance on the platform, Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman said at today's federal government press conference in Berlin.
The German rules against hate speech and fake news on the Internet are among the strictest in the EU.
The NetzDG requires platform operators to delete such posts and threatens fines of up to 50 million euros.
An advisory body was also dissolved
According to US media, Twitter has also dissolved a committee that advised the short message service on how to deal with hate messages and other problems on the platform.
Members of the so-called "Trust and Safety Council" should actually meet with company representatives on Monday evening, such as the AP news agency and the "Wall Street Journal" reported.
Shortly before that, Twitter had informed the members that the committee would be dissolved.
The advisory board was founded in 2016.
Members were representatives of civil society, such as human rights and youth protection organizations.
Her task was to advise the company on the further development of products and rules.
AP quotes from an email that Twitter is now examining how best to bring in "outside views".
The Advisory Board is not the right tool for this.
However, Twitter will ensure that the platform is informative and secure more quickly than before, the e-mail said.
Since the Twitter takeover by US billionaire Elon Musk this year, it has been questionable what the role of the advisory board is.
Musk had spoken of wanting to form a new committee to deal with controversial content.
However, it always remained unclear how the tasks of the two groups should be delimited.