Twitter is Evil

Sept 28 (Reuters) – Some major advertisers including Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids have suspended their marketing campaigns or removed their ads from parts of Twitter because their promotions appeared alongside tweets soliciting child pornography, the companies told Reuters.

DIRECTV and Thoughtworks also told Reuters late on Wednesday they have paused their advertising on Twitter.

Brands ranging from Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), NBCUniversal (CMCSA.O) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) to a children’s hospital were among more than 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to the exploitative material, according to a Reuters review of accounts identified in new research about child sex abuse online from cybersecurity group Ghost Data.

As the Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko was telling US lawmakers of “egregious” security failings at the company last Tuesday, shareholders in the social media platform overwhelmingly voted to hand those problems over to someone else: Elon Musk.

It is unlikely that the Tesla CEO, who owns more than 9% of Twitter and agreed to buy the company in April, was among the 99% of voting shareholders who backed that $44bn (£38.5bn) deal, given he is now determined to abandon it. A Delaware judge will decide at a trial beginning on 17 October whether Musk gets to walk away, or be forced to acquire the business on the terms that he had agreed upon.

Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko portrayed the social-media giant as a cesspool of cybersecurity and privacy risks in dramatic congressional testimony on Tuesday — and even claimed the site had at least one undercover Chinese agent on its payroll.

Zatko, a famed hacker who worked as Twitter’s head of security between November 2020 and early this year, was called to testify after he filed a dramatic whistleblower complaint in August alleging that the site poses a risk to national security. Twitter has accused him of making misleading claims.

Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter Zatko, has told US lawmakers the firm is “misleading the public” about how secure the platform really is.

He claimed Twitter was “a decade behind” security standards, that users’ data is not sufficiently protected and that too many staff have access to it.

Mr Zatko was giving evidence following an 84-page long whistleblowing complaint he made about security practices inside the social network.

He was fired by the firm in January.

Last month, Covid vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson was allowed back on Twitter after being “permanently” suspended for allegedly violating the platform’s Covid-19 “misinformation” policy. Remarkably, Twitter acknowledged that his tweets “should have not led” to his suspension.

Now, new internal Twitter documents publicized by Berenson reveal that the Biden administration likely played a pivotal role in his suspension. As a Twitter employee reported on the company’s internal Slack messaging system, the company faced “one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform” in an April 2021 White House meeting. Another employee reported that Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to President Biden’s Covid response team, claimed that he had seen evidence indicating that Berenson was “the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.”

More than 100 subpoenas have been issued to techies like Jack Dorsey and Marc Andreessen as Twitter tries to force Elon Musk to complete a $44 billion deal. Law firms are stoked.

Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, got a subpoena. So did Marc Andreessen, a prominent venture capitalist. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s chairman, and the investors David Sacks and Joe Lonsdale received them, too.

They were all summoned to share what they know about the rancorous, knock-down, drag-out tech spectacle of the year: the fight between Twitter and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.

Peiter Zatko’s leaked documents reveal chaos inside the company

For anyone who has felt the many frustrations of being on Twitter, from the relentless hostility to the adolescent cliques, a new set of leaks from Twitter’s former head of security should offer some consolation: at least you don’t work there. The documents, released by Peiter “Mudge” Zatko and obtained by the Washington Post and CNN, portray a terrifyingly dysfunctional state of affairs at the company largely responsible for administering online public discourse.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk subpoenaed former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, intensifying his ongoing legal battle with the social media giant over his intent to bail on his initial $44 billion acquisition offer.

Only weeks before Musk and Twitter go to court on Oct. 17, the richest man in the world seems to be accelerating his search for bots and spam accounts. Musk’s legal team demanded on Aug. 22 that Dorsey present documents and communications relating to “the impact or effect of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s business and operations,” according to the subpoena.

A well-known “ethical hacker” who was hired by Twitter to overhaul its cybersecurity alleged that the social media giant has become a security risk for the US after it reneged on a deal with the federal government to set up a system that adequately protects user data.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko — a software engineer who became a star in the hacker community after leading a 1990s-era group called “Cult of the Dead Cow” — filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging widespread dysfunction at Twitter.

Filings made by Elon Musk’s legal team in his battle with Twitter have been questioned by leading bot researchers.

Botometer – an online tool that tracks spam and fake accounts – was used by Mr Musk in a countersuit against Twitter.

Using the tool, Mr Musk’s team estimated that 33% of “visible accounts” on the social media platform were “false or spam accounts”.

However, Botometer creator and maintainer, Kaicheng Yang, said the figure “doesn’t mean anything”

Being doxxed — having private information exposed, from your real name to your home address — on social media is scary enough. But for outspoken dissidents, having their details revealed to the authoritarian government they are criticizing can be deadly. And having it done by a worker at a social-media platform is a jaw-dropping betrayal.

But this week, a former Twitter employee was found guilty of spying for the Saudi government in 2015 — ferrying private user information to a contact with close ties to the nation’s government and its controversial crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, aka MBS.

A former Twitter employee has been convicted of failing to register as an agent for Saudi Arabia and other charges after accessing private data on users critical of the kingdom’s government in a spy case that spanned from Silicon Valley to the Middle East.

Ahmad Abouammo, a US citizen and former media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, was charged in 2019 with acting as an agent of Saudi Arabia without registering with the US government. A jury found him guilty on six counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The jury acquitted him on another five charges involving wire fraud.