New Whistleblower Reveals Twitter Allowed Privacy Violations Under Musk: Report

The anonymous whistleblower was working at Twitter as an engineer during the time of filing the complaint. However, the person is no longer employed at the company.

The whistleblower alleged that the senior leadership of the company "does not support fixing known vulnerabilities." ( Image Source :Getty )

A new whistleblower has reportedly revealed that privacy violations and data security infringements continued unabated under the regime of Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk. The whistleblower has informed US Congress that privacy lapses were allowed despite knowing that they could result in potential legal risks and actions, including strict penalties. In a complaint filed by the whistleblower in mid-October last year, a maximum of 4,000 company employees were allowed to access an internal function nicknamed "GodMode," according to a report by Bloomberg. The allegations are that they were allowed to use this system, which allows them to have control over private Twitter accounts. It also means that they could delete or post anything from such Twitter handles. 

Just two weeks after the complaint was filed, Elon Musk became the company CEO, and it remains unclear whether the issue was settled later on or not.

The US Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and members of Congress received the complaint, which says that the micro-blogging platform did not have the capability to log the users of GoMode. It said, "Twitter does not have the capability to log which, if any, engineers use or abuse GodMode."

Following the filing of the complaint, multiple executives overseeing the cybersecurity, privacy-related matters, and legal compliance issues have quit the organisation.

The anonymous whistleblower was working at Twitter as an engineer during the time of filing the complaint. However, the person is no longer employed at the company.

According to a congressional staffer who shared the report with Bloomberg, the whistleblower informed the congressional committee recently about the pertaining violations at the platform. These security infringements continued even under the Musk era.

Although the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  has not commented on the matter as of now, the agency has been keeping an eye on the unfolding of events at the microblogging platform with "deep concern." It is expected to ask for compliance from the organisations soon in the near future.

Following the disclosures in the media, Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, expressed concerns about the data of Twitter users. She stated, "This further demonstrates the need for action from both Congress as well as regulators." Schakowsky also added that proposed legislation would mandate companies to keep users' information safe and secure.

Amid all of these, the FTC has been investigating Twitter's privacy and data security matters more seriously than before. After Musk's takeover, Twitter has been under the glare of most government agencies that work in areas related to data privacy. The platform continues to be under the watch and oversight of the FTC.

According to the complaint, about 4,000 Twitter employees could easily take control of private Twitter accounts and tweets. This has been happening since 2016.  It was so easy that they were only supposed to download code from the company's code stack and make some changes in the setting from "false" to "True". Doing this would allow them access to any private accounts.

The whistleblower alleged that the senior leadership of the company "does not support fixing known vulnerabilities." There were many major ongoing security lapses on the platform.