The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing with testimony from Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko on September 13, panel leaders announced Wednesday.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing with testimony from Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko on September 13, panel leaders announced Wednesday.
The commission said it had subpoenaed Zatko, the company’s former chief security officer, which comes a day after he went public alleging that Twitter failed to adequately protect the data of hundreds of millions of users, to Their personal information is exposed. hacker and spies.
“Mr. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican Chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said.
“If these claims are correct, they could prove dangerous data security and security risks to Twitter users around the world,” the senators said in the statement.
The committee plans to investigate further with a full hearing and take additional steps if necessary to get to the bottom of the charges, according to the statement.
Zatko, Who Twitter’s security supervisor from 2020 until he was fired six months ago, submitted a report outlining his claims to WE Securities and Exchange Commission, judicial and the Federal Trade Commission. He alleges that Twitter’s head of site integrity told him the social media company didn’t know how many bots or automated accounts were on its platform.
Twitter has denied the whistleblower’s claims, describing them in a statement as a false story “with many contradictions and inaccuracies.” Zatko was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance,” Twitter said.
John Tye, Whistleblower Aid’s director of disclosure, which represents Zatko in the complaint, said Wednesday night that “Mudge stands by all that he reveals and his ethical and effective leadership career. His own speaks for itself.”
Tye added: “The focus should be on the facts outlined in the disclosure, not on the whistleblower’s attacks.
Legal experts say Zatko’s statement could bolster Elon Musk’s legal case against Twitter. The Tesla Inc. founder, who is looking to back down from an attempt to acquire the social networking site, is arguing in court that Twitter misled him about the number of bots and spam on the platform.
Lawmakers on several congressional committees have vowed to investigate Zatko’s claims and argued that his disclosures highlight the need for federal privacy legislation.
Zatko alleges that Twitter prioritized growth over curbing the scourge of spam accounts and even offered millions of dollars in bonuses to executives to increase the number of daily active users. He also claimed Twitter’s sales team continued to misuse phone numbers for targeted advertising, potentially in violation of a 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission.
