Whistleblower Claims Twitter Lied About Bots to Elon Musk, CEO Agrawal Calls the Accusations ‘False Narrative’

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas is a contributing crypto writer for CryptoNews. He is a crypto and finance journalist with over four years of experience. Ruholamin has been featured in several high-profile crypto...

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October 23, 2023 08:50 EDT

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Twitter‘s former head of security has blown the whistle on the social media platform, alleging that the company has big holes in its security practices and that it misled the US government and Elon Musk about its vulnerability.

Peiter Zatko, who served as Twitter’s security head until January, has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of Justice. A redacted copy of the 84-page document has been shared by CBS News.

The complaint from Zatko, who is also a famed hacker known as “Mudge,” claims that the social media platform has “extreme, egregious deficiencies” in security, privacy, and content moderation. It also accuses Twitter’s executives of lying to federal regulators about the strength of its security plan.

The document also touches on the Elon Musk-Twitter saga, accusing the social media company of “lying about bots to Elon Musk.”

“A recent example of misrepresentations by Twitter concerns Elon Musk’s high-profile takeover attempt since April 2022,” the complaint said, noting that Musk expressed doubts about the accuracy of Twitter’s claim that less than 5% of accounts are “bots” while CEO Parag Agrawal denied this claim.

“Agrawal’s tweet was a lie. In fact, Agrawal knows very well that Twitter executives are not incentivized to accurately “detect” or report total spam bots on the platform,” claiming that,  

“Musk is correct: Twitter executives have little or no personal incentive to accurately “detect” or measure the prevalence of spam bots.”

Agrawal has responded to the charges in an alleged email sent to employees, which was posted to Twitter by CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan.

Per that letter, 

“We are reviewing the redacted claims that have been published, but what we’ve seen so far is a false narrative that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and presented without important context.”

NEW: First time Twitter CEO @paraga weighs in on whistleblower story.

Sending this message to staff this morning. pic.twitter.com/WY4TCqbA5q

— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) August 23, 2022

As reported, Musk declared his Twitter takeover bid on April 14, offering to buy 100% of the shares in the company for USD 54.20 per share. While Twitter’s board was initially skeptical of the deal, the company agreed with the USD 44bn buyout after Musk had confirmed a funding package that included USD 21bn of his own money.

However, in mid-May, Musk announced that he was putting the deal “on hold” until it became clear that less than 5% of the platform’s daily users are fake.

In early July, Musk officially announced that he was pulling out of the deal, but Twitter sued the billionaire for violating the deal, asking a court to order the Tesla CEO to complete it. The lawsuit will go to trial on October 17 for five days.

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Learn more: 
– Twitter vs. Elon Musk
– Twitter Says It Won’t Let Elon Musk Go as ‘Dogecoin CEO’ Terminates Deal

– Elon Musk Eyes Twitter ‘Digital Payments’ Expansion, But Faces DOGE ‘Pyramid’ Legal Wrap
– Elon Musk ‘Looking for Excuse’ to Ditch Agreement to Buy Twitter, Say Legal Experts After Fresh Bot Claims

– Binance Backs Twitter Takeover with USD 500m, Musk Could Serve as Interim CEO
– The Musk-Twitter Showdown