Former Twitter’s security chief, Peiter Zatko became a whistleblower earlier this week, when he disclosed that the company had widespread security issues and internal dysfunction and had indeed misled Elon Musk about the number of bots on the platform. Zatko was fired from Twitter in January.
Zatko also alleged that Twitter executives are “incentivized to avoid counting spam bots as mDAU” in order to make the platform more attractive for advertisers, according to Epoch Times. The disclosure report continued, “If mDAU includes spam bots that do not click through ads to buy products, then advertisers conclude the ads are less effective and might shift their ad spending away from Twitter to other platforms with higher perceived effectiveness,”
Twitter Swatted
Peiter Zatko, former Twitter security head, has filed an explosive whistleblower complaint alleging it has major security vulnerabilities and misrepresented number of "bots/fake accounts. The flaws 'pose a threat to democracy and put 230 million users at risk." pic.twitter.com/HwcrWzdknc
— Grouse Beater (@Grouse_Beater) August 24, 2022
Clearly Elon Musk understood there was chaos inside the company.
Peiter Zatko's leaked documents show Musk understood the chaos within Twitter | @AuerbachKeller https://t.co/ZD1R4XWVwg
— UnHerd (@unherd) August 24, 2022
Musk tweeted a response to Zatko’s revelation, revealing that Twitter board members did understand the bot/spam account issue and had the numbers presented to them.
So spam prevalence *was* shared with the board, but the board chose not disclose that to the public … pic.twitter.com/lXk48TFZL1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2022
The Twitter vs. Elon Musk legal battle took another turn this week.
Thursday, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s Court of Chancery ordered Twitter to turn over data from 9,000 accounts it analyzed in a fourth-quarter audit to estimate the number of Twitter spam/bot accounts.
Musk’s attorneys requested that Chancellor McCormick provide access to more than 200 million active users, but their request was denied. McCormick responded, “Read literally, Defendants’ documents request would require Plaintiff to produce trillions upon trillions of data points reflecting all of the data Twitter might store.”
Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, applauded the result, seemingly happy to receive a small portion of the original request, “We look forward to reviewing the data Twitter has been hiding for many months.”
On July 8, Musk terminated his deal to buy Twitter after he said the company failed to respond to requests for information regarding fake accounts, violating the purchase agreement’s terms. When Twitter decided to sue Musk for terminating the deal, he posted a tweet mocking the company for trying to force him to complete the sale after initially trying to prevent him from the purchase. As a result, Musk filed a countersuit in late July.