Whistleblower Alleges Twitter Misled Regulators On Spam And Hackers As Company Reshuffles Teams Amid Controversy

Twitter seems to be in the headlines again and this time around, it’s related to accusations made by a whistleblower.

The company’s ex-security chief is not holding back on his allegations related to how Twitter misled regulators about its spam accounts as well as hacking attempts. And let’s just say the timing couldn’t be more perfect as the legal battle against Musk will soon take place.

Peiter Zatko issued a mega 84-page long complaint against the company including details about how the firm fake promised that it had a solid plan for security in place. And as you can expect, the news caused the firm’s shares to fall a whopping 7% after this.

There are clear allegations about how Twitter put their user growth over efforts to tackle issues like spam. This way, it would pave more room for the company’s executives to win huge bonuses worth a startling $10 million.

The most the number of daily users, the bigger the bonus. And along the way, they were doing nothing to control spam, the report added.

But Twitter has refused to comment on the matter, adding how it was just baseless and incorrect. As it is, the platform has its own legal showdown against Tesla CEO arriving soon and this just adds more worry to an already pressured situation.

Zatko who is notoriously famed as a big hacker had filed the complaint last month in July with the country’s Security and Exchange Commission, including the FTC too. This was further sent out to various committees in congress too.

All that we know so far is that the firm’s CEO issued a public statement claiming they’re busy reviewing the whole document but he didn’t shy away from labeling it as completely false. In addition to that, Parag Agrawal added how it’s full of inaccurate statements and some major inconsistent wordings.

As you can imagine, US lawmakers aren’t letting this go easily, calling it a huge concern for the country’s national security. They feel it’s setting up a huge disaster because when you combine poor infrastructure with the worst security arrangements, that is what you get.

As of now, the FTC is holding back its comments on the matter as well. Meanwhile, there is a meeting being set up for the Senate’s Intelligence team members to discuss the matter further.

But if this does indeed prove that Twitter has been reckless about such concerns, it could really mean huge trouble for the firm. Before we forget, Zatko has received plenty of fame for his efforts in the past with many admiring his efforts as a top cybersecurity expert.

On the other hand, there is news about Twitter reshuffling its teams amid the great controversy. There is news about how the firm is working on ways to put an end to or limit the spread of spam and toxic-themed content.

The news went public after a memo was sent out to the firm’s team members as revealed by Reuters recently. Therefore, Twitter plans on combining members of its health team, which looks after such matters, with those hailing from its service team.

The latter is responsible for keeping a check on member profiles and issues reports while taking out spam accounts.

Twitter added how this new group will now be known as Health Products & Services as detailed in the recent memo.

So as you can see, there is plenty of change taking place and with all these reports coming forward, it makes sense why Twitter might be worried.


H/T: CNN

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