Twitter, one of the most popular social media platforms, has not been on the agenda recently due to Elon Musk’s attempt to buy the platform. Musk first announced that he would buy the company for an astronomical price, and then announced that he gave up on his decision due to reasons such as bot accounts. After that, both parties sued each other.
One of those who supported Musk’s claims about Twitter was Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, one of the company’s former senior executives. Zatko, who worked as Twitter’s head of security from 2020 until January of this year, claimed that the company made misleading statements about bot accounts. Zatko also said that there are serious security problems such as easy access to user data. With these claims, the former executive recently filed a complaint against Twitter with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. As the discussions continued, new statements came from Zatko.
Twitter puts profit above safety, says Zatko
The former security chief, who testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee, made striking statements on Twitter. Answering the questions, Zatko emphasized that he did not want to harm the company and drew attention to the managers. The 51-year-old software developer stated that the managers on Twitter put profit above security.
In a statement based on the information provided to the company by the FBI, Zatko stated that at least one agent from India and China was working within the company. The manager, who said that he did not know what could be done with the collected data, added that the employees were not satisfied with the money Twitter received from China and that no action was taken to dismiss the specified ‘agents’.
Around 4,000 Twitter employees have access to user data
The US senators in the session also emphasized these allegations about Twitter and invited the company CEO, Parag Agrawal, to resign. One of the senators highlighted the importance of the issue, saying that this year an employee on Twitter was accused of collecting information for Saudi Arabia.
Another senator raised a very worrying issue, saying that the company has access to user information (such as location) of around 4,000 employees and asked Zatko if this information could be made publicly available on the internet. The former manager also answered ‘yes’ to this question.
After Zatko’s statements, Elon Musk, who accused Twitter of fraud, showed that he followed these statements with pleasure by sharing popcorn emoji on the platform.
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