“Therefore Musk’s suspicions are on target: senior executives earn bonuses not for cutting spam, but for growing mDAU. The complaint alleges there are “many millions of active accounts” not considered mDAU that include spam bots. Musk engaged in a public back-and-forth with Agrawal in May, roughly a month after reaching a deal to buy the company, about the number of bots or spam accounts on Twitter.Īgrawal responded by stating that “we are strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can.” Zatko’s complaint calls the response a lie, alleging that the metric Twitter uses to quantify the average number of users on the platform that can view ads - called the mDAU, or monetizable daily active user, metric - incentivizes executives to avoid counting spam bots as mDAU because that figure is reported to advertisers. If the mDAU metric included spam bots that do not click through ads, then it could lead advertisers to shift to other platforms. Until there’s greater scrutiny to show whether the former employee can back that up, the jury is out,” Manns said. But all we know at this point is we have a former employee who is raising what could be legitimate concerns.
“The accusations are salacious in terms of misconduct and misrepresentation by leadership concerning both the levels of security and the number of fake accounts. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders.” “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,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. Twitter is pushing back strongly on Zatko’s allegations - as it has with accusations made by Musk.
For the Musk camp this story is like a kid looking under the tree on Christmas morning heading into Delaware court.” “This alarming story also raises security concerns which will be a major focus of the Beltway on Twitter. “This throws gasoline into the fire around the bot issue with Musk and Twitter,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said. It marks one of several fronts on which Twitter will have to navigate hurdles in the fallout from the whistleblower complaint, which includes a lengthy list of accusations about security deficiencies that the company denies and will also force Twitter to face scrutiny from Congress and federal regulators that have been increasingly hostile toward tech companies in recent years. Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk was filed in July. Zatko, and we found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” said Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk.įormer Twitter security chief alleges vulnerabilities risk national security, privacy “We have already issued a subpoena for Mr. Musk’s legal team is already leaning into using Zatko’s complaint as the Musk-Twitter case heads to an October trial. Nonetheless, key portions of the redacted 84-page complaint, published by The Washington Post, appear to bolster Musk’s accusations, even referencing tweets from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to Musk about the number of bots on the platform as a “recent example of misrepresentations.” Zatko has had no contact with Musk, and the drafting of the complaint predates Musk’s involvement with Twitter, according to Whistleblower Aid, the group representing Zatko. ( The Hill) - A bombshell Twitter whistleblower complaint alleging the company has major security deficiencies is adding fuel to Elon Musk’s core argument in his case against Twitter as he tries to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy the platform.įormer Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko’s complaint, made public Tuesday, complicates the legal challenge for the social media platform. Twitter is suing in an effort to force Musk to complete his acquisition of the company after he walked away from his binding offer over accusations that Twitter breached the agreement by failing to provide him with sufficient data about spam accounts.
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