India forced Twitter to keep agent with data access: Whistleblower

Twitter’s former head of security Peiter Zatko has alleged that the social media intermediary “deceived” regulators in the US as well the platform’s own board of directors about its efforts in defence against hackers as well as bots and spam, The Washington Post reported.

The report, quoting Zatko’s complaint to federal regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission, Congress and others, also alleged that the Indian government had forced Twitter to keep on its payroll one of its agents, who had access to user data even during the protests against the incumbent government.

“Zatko’s complaint alleges he had warned colleagues that half the company’s servers were running out-of-date and vulnerable software and that executives withheld dire facts about the number of breaches and lack of protection for user data, instead presenting directors with rosy charts measuring unimportant changes,” The Washington Post said in its report.