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Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday that he regrets turning the social network into an enterprise, amid the scandal splashing the platform following testimony from its former head of security.
Twitter has been embroiled in controversy since a former company executive on Tuesday alleged that it has serious cybersecurity problems. The man further stated that the company has lied to authorities about them and has neither the capacity nor the interest to determine the number of fake accounts on the social network.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, Twitter’s former chief security officer, reported all this in a report submitted last month to the U.S. Congress and several federal agencies, the contents of which were disclosed by The Washington Post and CNN.
According to these media, the internal information shared by Zatko describes a company with significant management issues, which among other things allows too many employees to access its central controls and sensitive information without adequate supervision.
In addition, he claims that one or more employees may be working for foreign intelligence services and alleges that company executives have lied to shareholders and regulators about the social network’s biggest security weaknesses.
The complaint says that egregious deficiencies, negligence, willful ignorance, and threats to national security and democracy have been detected at the company.
Zatko also points out that Twitter does not properly delete data from users who terminate their accounts, in some cases because it has lost the information, and that it has misled regulators in this regard.
His report also refers to the issue of the “bots” that populate the social network and that are at the center of the trial that will pit Twitter and billionaire Elon Musk against each other, after the latter decided to cancel the purchase of the company, partly because he believes he has not told the truth about the number of fake accounts.
According to the former executive, Twitter does not have the resources to really know the number of “bots” and its top executives are not interested in getting them either.
Zatko worked at the company between November 2020 and January this year, when he was fired.
