As someone who was an active user of Twitter for more than a decade, I cannot begin to communicate how utterly awful that platform has become in the past few years. First, it was all the disinformation and vileness by Trump supporters who seemingly refuse to understand that a private company is not a government agency and is not obligated to protect what you think are your First Amendment rights. Then it was the Musk takeover and the total chaos he has already caused that has resulted in people’s accounts being less secure from impersonation, and the staff reductions that have left Twitter without a real security team and privacy team. And it is those latest developments that may run Musk and Twitter afoul of a consent decree Twitter signed earlier this year with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.
Jon Brodkin reports:
Some of Twitter’s top privacy and security executives resigned this week amid worries that Elon Musk’s rapid changes may cause violations of the company’s recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
“The privacy staffers said they were most concerned by the rapid rollout of new features without the full security reviews that the FTC consent decree requires,” The Washington Post reported in a story about the departures today.
Chief Information Security Officer Lea Kissner confirmed leaving the company in a tweet. Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty also resigned, according to news reports.
The FTC said it’s keeping track of what’s going on at Twitter. “We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” an FTC spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill and other news outlets. “No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
Read more at Ars Technica.