Ex-Twitter executive claims company ‘lied’ to Musk about fake accounts

Ex-Twitter executive claims company 'lied' to Musk about fake accounts

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Peiter Zatko, the company’s former director of IT security, denounced a series of bad practices in the social network. He sent a complaint to the SEC, the American stock market policeman.

Could this be the beginning ofTwitter Files»? A former leader of Twitter, Peiter Zatko, has just denounced many bad practices of the social network. In an 80-page document addressed in July to the American stock market policeman (SEC), the former director of computer security points to several dozen “fraudscommitted in recent years. The complaint is available in its entirety on the Washington Post website.

Among Peiter Zatko’s most serious accusations, he assures that Twitter violated an agreement with the American competition authority (FTC). The commitment made in 2011 mainly concerns the security of Twitter and its users. However, according to him, half of the company’s servers are running on outdated software. They are therefore very vulnerable to hackers.

SEE ALSO – Twitter sues Elon Musk to force him to buyout

The hypothesis of false accounts supported

The whistleblower also accuses Twitter and its CEO Parag Agrawal of havingliedto Elon Musk on the number of fake accounts active on the platform. An element that prompted the billionaire to withdraw his offer to purchase from the social network.

In a post shared on May 16, Parag Agrawal explained that his company’s policy is to detect and then suspend fake accounts. He implied that these “bots» represent less than 5% of the 450 million monthly active users. “This tweet was a lie. In truth, Agrawal knows full well that Twitter executives have no incentive to accurately detect or report spambots.», Explains the whistleblower. For him, the blue bird voluntarily avoids counting millions of accounts so as not to scare away the advertising agencies.

With his statements, the former director of security therefore validates the words of Elon Musk. The future of the Twitter takeover will be tried in US courts on October 17. The boss of Tesla has so far not reacted to these revelations.

In a press release, Twitter strongly disputes the words of its former employee who was dismissed as “ineffective”. The complaint is, according to them,full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies“. The company ensures that the security of its systems and user data is a priority.

SEE ALSO – Withdrawal of Elon Musk: a “nightmare scenario” for Twitter, according to an expert

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