Twitter’s former chief security officer made a statement on the social media platform, alleging that the company has major flaws in its security practices and has misled the U.S. government and Elon Musk about its vulnerability.
Peiter Zatko, who served as Twitter’s chief privacy officer until January 1, filed whistleblower complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department. CBS News shared a copy of the redacted 84-page document.
The complaint from Zatko, who is also a well-known hacker known as “Mudge” claims that the social media platform has serious shortcomings in terms of security, privacy, and content moderation. It also accused Twitter executives of lying to federal regulators about securing its security plan.
The document also mentions the Elon Musk-Twitter story, accusing the social media company of lying about bots with Elon Musk.
A recent example of Twitter’s false statements regarding Elon Musk’s high-profile takeover efforts as of April 2022, the lawsuit says, Musk expressed doubts about the accuracy of Twitter’s claim that less than 5% of accounts are “bots” while CEO Parag Agrawal objected to the claim.
Agrawal responded to the allegations in an email to employees, posted to Twitter by CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan.
NEW: First time Twitter CEO @paraga weighs in on whistleblower story.
Sending this message to staff this morning. pic.twitter.com/WY4TCqbA5q
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) August 23, 2022
