Whistleblower grievance: House panel summons Twitter executives

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, has summoned executives of social media platform Twitter for a listening to, a day after a former govt of the platform alleged that the Indian authorities had “forced” Twitter to rent people who had been “government agents” and had unsupervised entry to huge quantities of the platform’s consumer knowledge.

While the agenda of the listening to says that Twitter officers shall be heard with reference to “Citizens’ Data Security and Privacy”, sources throughout the panel mentioned that Opposition members of Parliament will grill them on the allegations made by Twitter whistleblower Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko, former head of worldwide safety on the firm.

In a grievance filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Zatko claimed that Twitter “knowingly” permitted an “Indian government agent direct unsupervised access to the company’s systems and user data”. “The company did not in fact disclose to users that it was believed by the executive team that the Indian government had succeeded in placing agents on the company payroll,” it learn.

Zatko additionally mentioned that in nations the place Twitter was wanted to have a bodily presence and full time staff, “the threat of harm to Twitter employees was sufficient to cause Twitter to seriously consider complying with foreign government requests that Twitter would otherwise fundamentally oppose”. He added that the federal government of India, together with these of Russia and Nigeria, “sought, with varying success, to force Twitter to hire local FTEs (full time employees) that could be used as leverage”.

Before becoming a member of Twitter, Zatko held senior positions at Google and Stripe, and the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the place he obtained the very best award accessible to civilian, non-career staff.

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Twitter has denied the allegations and mentioned that Zatko was fired from his function within the firm in January 2022 for “ineffective leadership and poor performance”. “What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context. Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be,” a spokesperson for the corporate had earlier mentioned.

Twitter didn’t reply to a request for touch upon being summoned by the Parliamentary panel.

Zatko’s revelations come as Twitter is locked in a authorized battle with the Centre over a few of its content material and account blocking orders. Last month, the social media firm had moved the Karnataka High Court asking for the overturning of the federal government’s order to dam 39 hyperlinks. Twitter has argued that the blocking orders had been past the purview of the regulation.