San Francisco, November 12:  A lawyer working for Elon Musk has reassured Twitter staff that they will not go to jail for being liable if the company violated the requirements of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) consent decree.

Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro sent an email to employees, seen by TechCrunch, that said it is "Twitter itself (not individual employees) who is a party and therefore only Twitter the company that could be liable". Elon Musk Asks ‘What Is Quill?’ After Twitter User Says Microblogging Platform Acquired App To Improve Its DMs.

In 2011, Twitter agreed to a consent decree with the US regulator after being found to have misused user data. The FTC this week said that "no CEO or company is above the law". Spiro said in the email that it is the company's obligation.

"I understand that there have been employees at Twitter who do not even work on the FTC matter commenting that they could (go) to jail if we were not in compliance - that is simply not how this works. It is the company's obligation. It is the company's burden. It is the company's liability," he wrote.

The lawyer said that they will remain in compliance with the consent decree. Meanwhile, instances of racial slurs on Twitter have increased since Musk bought the influential platform, despite assurances from the platform that it has reduced hate activity. Insulin Is Not Free: Eli Lilly Becomes New Victim of Elon Musk's Twitter $8 Blue Subscription Mess, Issues Clarification After Verified Parody Account Announced Free Rollout of Life-Saving Drug.

The researchers at the Centre for Countering Digital Hate discovered that in the week following Musk's purchase of Twitter, the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs increased dramatically.

The number of racial epithets used to attack Black people was more than 26,000, which is three times the average for 2022. Also, several Twitter users on Friday reported that the new $7.99 Blue subscription service suddenly disappeared from their iOS app, as Elon Musk claimed the platform has hit an "all-time high of active users".

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 12, 2022 11:26 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).