Twitter Queried by US Regulator

Twitter faced scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission over how the microblogging and social networking service calculates the number of spam accounts, a topic at the heart of the firm’s legal battle with Elon Musk. 

The US regulator's letter sent mid-June, but made public only Wednesday, asked Twitter to disclose their methodology as well as the “underlying judgments and assumptions” involved. 

That letter surfaced just a day after news broke that Peiter "Mudge" Zatko (right), an “ethical hacker” who once worked with Google, Stripe, and the US Defense Department, and Twitter’s ex-head of cybersecurity-turned-whistleblower had told US authorities the company misled users and regulators about “extreme, egregious” security gaps. 

His complaint warned of obsolete servers, software vulnerable to computer attacks and executives seeking to hide the number of hacking attempts, both from US authorities and from the company’s board of directors. In particular, Zatko accused Twitter and their CEO Parag Agrawal of issuing untrue statements on account numbers because “if accurate measurements ever became public, it would harm the image and valuation of the company”. 

Twitter’s official statement… is that Zatko’s report is a “false narrative” designed to damage the company. 

But if Zatko’s claims are found to be credible, it could not only help Musk – who claims he abandoned his $44B Twitter purchase after they failed to provide info about fake accounts – but also mean big FTC fines. Both parties are scheduled to meet in court on October 17.