Twitter whistleblower Zatko to testify at US Congress on Sep 13

San Francisco, Aug 25

Twitter whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko is set to testify at US Congress on September 13 about allegation he leveled against the Parag Agrawal-led micro-blogging platform over misleading regulators about security practices and actual number of bot accounts. Twitter's former security chief Zatko will testify Twitter before the Senate about his allegations of security failures at the social network, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the hearing is scheduled for September 13 and Zatko will appear "pursuant to a subpoena".

"Zatko's allegations of widespread security failures and foreign state actor interference at Twitter raise serious concerns. If these claims are accurate, they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world," said Senators Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) from the Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement.

Zatko has met privately with Judiciary Committee staff, and has had three meetings on Capitol Hill, according to the report.

Twitter declined to comment on the hearing.

The company held a town hall on Wednesday in which senior company executives deliberated upon the whistleblower complaint.

Twitter is now facing privacy probes in the European Union (EU) after the whistleblower complaint.

Zatko's complaints had references to European regulators, alleging that Twitter misled or intended to mislead regional oversight bodies over its compliance with local laws.

According to TechCrunch, Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) and France's CNIL are following up on the whistleblower complaint.

Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also asked Twitter to explain its user metrics after Tesla CEO Elon Musk complained.

"We note your estimate that the average number of false or spam accounts during fiscal 2021 continues to represent fewer than 5 per cent of mDAU," the commission wrote to Twitter.

"To the extent material, please disclose the methodology used in calculating these figures and the underlying judgements and assumptions used by management," the SEC added.

--IANS