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A Twitter whistleblower on Tuesday testified before Congress that the company’s failure to secure sensitive data causes “real harm to real people,” prompting senators to grapple with Washington’s inability to effectively regulate major social networks.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s Senate testimony — which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/twitter-whistleblower-sec-spam/?itid=ap_josephmenn" target=_blank>expanded on an 84-page complaint</a> shared with regulators and The Washington Post this summer — said that Twitter executives misled the public, regulators and the company’s own board about its systemically broken defenses against hackers.

He described an executive team that was financially incentivized to ignore root problems, such as employees having too much access to data. Because the company wasn’t properly tracking data access, he claimed, it was impossible for the company to respond to critical national security risks — including access gained by potential foreign agents on its payroll.

Former security chief claims Twitter buried ‘egregious deficiencies’

Zatko, the company’s former security lead and<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/23/peiter-mudge-zatko-twitter-whistleblower/?itid=ap_josephmenn" target=_blank> a renowned hacker</a>, grounded his at-times highly technical disclosures in examples of risks that lawmakers could connect to, suggesting this unfettered access could result in Twitter engineers sending unauthorized tweets from their accounts.

“It doesn’t matter who has keys if you don’t have any locks on the doors,” he said. “It’s not far-fetched to say an employee inside the company could take over the accounts of all the senators in this room.”

Twitter has said security and privacy are priorities at the company. “Today’s hearing only confirms that Mr. Zatko’s allegations are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies,” said Rebecca Hahn, a Twitter spokeswoman. Twitter declined to say which of Zatko’s claims were inaccurate.

The federal government struggled for years with the growing influence of major tech companies, with lawmakers from both parties promising to pass regulations to protect Americans’ data,<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/27/antitrust-tech-battle-congress/" target=_blank> improve competition </a>in the industry and<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/06/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-senate-unity/" target=_blank> keep children safe online</a>. Yet no such bills have become law, despite dozens of hearings grilling some of the most powerful tech executives in the world, as well as former employees such as Zatko who are going public with alleged wrongdoing.

On Tuesday, lawmakers not only railed against Twitter, but also raised concerns about how their own inaction has prevented regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission from protecting Americans from alleged company abuses. They asked Zatko pointed questions about the ways smaller countries, such as France, have been able to pursue more aggressive oversight of data-privacy abuses.

“I believe this should be a watershed moment,” said Zatko attorney Alexis Ronickher, adding that she was heartened by the commitment from the senators to change regulation and enforcement.

With clock ticking, battle over tech regulation intensifies

In appearing before Congress to discuss his disclosures, Zatko joins a cohort of other tech whistleblowers who have turned to lawmakers to address allegedly improper activity in the tech industry. Zatko, who reported directly to former Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, was in a more senior position than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/05/facebook-senate-hearing-frances-haugen/" target="_blank">Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen</a> or Cambridge Analytica <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/19/cambridge-analytica-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-warns-that-facebook-targeting-threatens-free-speech/" target="_blank">whistleblower Christopher Wylie</a> — raising the personal and professional stakes of his disclosure. Yet it remains to be seen whether Zatko’s allegations will spur action in a narrowly divided and often paralyzed Congress, in which intense industry lobbying, partisan division and competing priorities have thwarted previous efforts to rein in Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile, Twitter shareholders voted Tuesday to approve Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition offer, setting the world’s richest man on a collision course with the social media company as the two head to court in October. The approval — to accept Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share, far higher than the current share price of roughly $42 — was widely expected. Twitter has forged ahead with the deal, despite<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/07/musk-twitter-trial-no-delay/?itid=ap_rachellerman" target=_blank> Musk’s attempts to back out</a> because of what he says are problems with the company’s business.

Zatko’s testimony could also factor into Twitter’s ongoing litigation with Musk, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/07/musk-twitter-trial-no-delay/?itid=ap_rachellerman" target=_blank>who has already incorporated</a> some of the arguments from the whistleblower’s complaint in court.

Zatko is also expected to meet with federal regulators, including the FTC, which could bring fines totaling hundreds of millions of dollars against Twitter for violating a previous consent order with the agency. Zatko has alleged that Twitter did not follow through on the commitments it made to the Federal Trade Commission to create a data-security program.

Ronickher declined to say whether Zatko was meeting with the agency while he was in D.C.

Twitter whistleblower exposes limits of FTC’s power

Zatko on Tuesday expanded on allegations in his redacted complaint regarding Twitter’s employment of suspected foreign government operatives, who may have had access to sensitive data because of the company’s lack of internal controls. He said agents for the Indian government and the Chinese government were on the company’s payroll.

A week before his January firing, Zatko testified, the FBI had warned security staff that a Chinese agent for the Ministry of State Security was employed at the company. Twitter ads paid for by the Chinese government also<b> </b>could have elicited information, including locations of users who click on them, he said.

Zatko’s testimony <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/04/twitter-mudge-alethea-resources/?itid=ap_elizabethdwoskin" target=_blank>is already becoming a headache</a> for Twitter and its chief executive, Parag Agrawal. Multiple senators slammed Agrawal for declining to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the company’s ongoing litigation with Musk.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s top Republican, said that if Zatko’s allegations are true, Agrawal should be forced to step down as chief executive.

The disclosures Tuesday appeared to prompt some bipartisan soul-searching among lawmakers, many of whom spoke of a combined failure to bring enforcement against tech companies. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said that he was working across party lines with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to create a regulatory system that would imitate one in Europe, where lawmakers have taken aggressive action to penalize American tech companies.

Graham and Warren are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, and Graham’s proposal signals how dramatically some Republicans’ positions on tech regulation have evolved in recent years. The party has historically favored a less stringent regulatory environment for businesses. A congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, confirmed Warren was working with Graham, but a final agreement was “not imminent.”

Graham suggested a new regulator would address privacy, content moderation and foreign interference, and that it would provide an appeals process for users when companies remove their content.

“Your testimony today has legitimized what most of us feel is a process out of control, that the regulatory environment is insufficient to the task,” Graham said. “It’s time to up our game in this country.”

Twitter whistleblower won hacker acclaim for exposing software flaws

Multiple senators appeared interested in how other countries have approached regulating tech companies such as Twitter. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) asked if French regulators had better standards to hold Twitter accountable. Zatko responded that France’s data regulator is “more feared” because “they dig in technically and go toward more quantitative results that are less easy for organizations to sort of wordsmith around.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) floated the idea of creating a tech enforcement agency that would specifically address data security and national security threats posed by tech companies.

“I think the mounting evidence shows that the current regulatory structure is failing,” Blumenthal told The Post.

Zatko emphasized throughout the hearing that any regulations need to be enforced with independent audits and metrics, to ensure that well-resourced companies are unable to game the system.

He also called on lawmakers to consider legislation that would expand whistleblower protections to other government agencies, so that more employees would be able to disclose critical information to the government. Zatko and Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, filed their complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has a dedicated program that offers rewards and protections for such complaints.

The FTC, the industry’s main tech regulator, does not have such a program, and the SEC does not protect whistleblowers at privately owned companies.

Early in the hearing, Zatko spoke about the personal and professional toll submitting his complaint had taken on him and his family. He said that he did not make his disclosures “out of spite or to harm Twitter.”

“What you did today will not be in vain,” Graham said.

Zatko has testified before Congress since 1998. A previous version of this item incorrectly said he hadn’t testified since then. This item has been updated.

Peiter Zatko’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee echoes his appearance in 1998, when he led a crew of seven hackers from the pioneering Boston group L0pht as they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/06/22/net-of-insecurity-part-3/?itid=lk_inline_manual_55" target=_blank>warned that the internet was unsafe at any speed</a>. The others who testified under their online handles that day included Chris “Weld Pond” Wysopal, who went on to co-found the billion-dollar security firm Veracode, and Joe “Kingpin” Grand, an early hardware enthusiast who recently won acclaim for breaking into cryptocurrency wallets for owners who lost their passwords. (Wysopal made a return trip in 2003 to tell a House committee about rapid evolution in computer viruses.)

Zatko told The Post last month that he saw Twitter whistleblowing as fulfilling his commitment to former CEO Jack Dorsey to make the service safer for users by any legal means necessary. But, as he wrote in his opening statement to the Senate, it also progresses naturally from his work three decades ago on the core hacking concept of<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/23/peiter-mudge-zatko-twitter-whistleblower/?itid=lk_inline_manual_56" target=_blank> responsible disclosure</a>.

Under the approach crafted at the L0pht, researchers who find a dangerous security flaw in software first warn the company behind the program, giving them a chance to fix it. But if they choose not to, hackers have the moral right to go public with their findings, sometimes setting off a free-for-all as criminals scramble to analyze and exploit the holes and customers press the vendor to issue a patch.

Joseph Menn

Elon Musk’s takeover offer for Twitter heads to trial on Oct. 17.

Some investors, and governance and legal experts, have pointed to the shareholder vote as a key date on the calendar, signaling Twitter’s eagerness to bring the matter to a close and place pressure on Musk as the deal heads to court. Some of those experts have also cited the shareholder vote as a potential impetus for settlement talks, as the matter gets closer to trial.

Twitter has argued for an expedited trial, in an effort to limit damage to the company, an argument the judge found compelling enough to compress the trial to a week.

Twitter schedules shareholder vote for embattled Elon Musk deal

Now Twitter has completed another key step in finalizing the deal, winning the approval of shareholders. The moves align with Twitter’s arguments that Musk should not be able to exit the deal. Twitter is seeking to hold him to specific performance — a contractual tenet that would mean Musk must go through with the deal he agreed to.

By proceeding as if the deal is still in place, Twitter is upholding its end of the bargain.

Faiz Siddiqui

Earlier Tuesday, Musk indicated he might be watching the hearing Tuesday — by<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1569699453786898432?s=20&t=xN60nYlHmcUlaYkU9AKnRA" target=_blank> tweeting a popcorn emoji</a>.

Musk has more than 105 million followers on Twitter, where he often tweets thoughts on his businesses, as well as jokes and memes.

Judge will let Musk add whistleblower claims to case against Twitter

The billionaire, who plans to incorporate some of Zatko’s claims at his upcoming trial against Twitter, also changed his Twitter display name to “Naughtius Maximus.”

Rachel Lerman

Twitter Whistleblower Congress Explainer

Twitter shareholders’ approval of Elon Musk’s $44 billion offer to buy the company takes the matter one step closer to a heated battle in court.

Shareholders gave their assent to the deal Tuesday, according to a preliminary count of a vote, the company said. The vote took place during a short virtual meeting after brief remarks by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

The result came as little surprise to those closely following the matter. Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share was substantially higher than Twitter’s current trading price, below $42.

Twitter did not immediately release the vote tally.

Roughly five minutes into the Twitter investor call, Elon Musk’s takeover deal was approved based on a preliminary count.

The move was a formal step toward finalizing the deal that heads to court in October, as Musk tries to back out.

FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows Elon Musk's Twitter profile on smartphone and printed Twitter logos

Twitter shareholders are holding a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/26/twitter-elon-musk-shareholder-vote/?itid=lk_inline_manual_83" target=_blank>vote</a> Tuesday to formally consider Musk’s offer to buy the website for $44 billion, another step toward closing the deal as the disputed takeover heads to Delaware Chancery Court.

Shareholders are expected to greenlight the deal for $54.20 per share — Musk’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-deal/?itid=lk_inline_manual_84" target=_blank>offer</a> from April — a substantial premium over Monday’s trading price of around $41. Twitter’s board urged shareholders to vote yes ahead of the meeting, which will take place virtually at 1 p.m. EST.

Shareholders were also expected consider a measure to approve payouts tied to the merger for Twitter executives, though an affirmative vote is not required to complete the deal.

Musk himself is the largest individual shareholder in Twitter at just under 10 percent, but investment firms such as Vanguard, Morgan Stanley and Blackrock hold substantial stakes in the company. Musk has tried to back out of the deal — citing concerns over Twitter’s representations on spam and bots accounts and its statements to regulators.

Top Senate lawmakers repeatedly vented at Tuesday’s hearing that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal would not appear before the panel but declined to say after the session whether they planned to issue a subpoena to compel him to appear.

Sens. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, each told reporters they needed to consult with each other on the matter.

Asked whether he planned to hold an additional hearing on the whistleblower claims, Durbin replied, “It’s possible. I’ll talk that over with Senator Grassley.”

Grassley, who earlier said Twitter cited its legal battle with billionaire Elon Musk as the reason Agrawal did not appear, took a jab at Agrawal after the session. “He’s hiding behind some suit going on in Delaware. What’s that got to do with what we want to know from him?” he told The Washington Post.

Cristiano Lima-Strong

Asked why as head of security he was unable to get Twitter to meet basic security standards, Peiter Zatko said his attempts were frustrated by a culture that dissuaded employees from reporting negative information.

Zatko alleged in his whistleblower complaint that executives touted internally and to the board that more than 90 percent of the company’s laptops had security software installed, while omitting the fact that the software showed that 30 percent of the machines had settings that prevented software updates from being installed automatically.

In answering questions Tuesday, Zatko said it took him more than a month to find out what the security software’s monitoring had reported.

“There was an internal culture of only reporting good results up,” Zatko alleged.

Zatko: Twitter engineers could tweet as senators

Zatko alleged that due to Twitter’s lack of internal controls, company engineers had wide system access that would allow them to tweet as other users — including U.S. senators.

Zatko said he was not specifically aware of this occurring, but the example underscored how he was grounding his claims in anecdotal examples that senators could find relatable. In responding to lawmakers, Zatko has sought to ground his highly technical allegations by illustrating the real-world risks and harms of the company’s alleged lack of security controls.

He alleged he was aware of “numerous” situations where Twitter’s 4,000 engineers had access to sensitive personal data that could be abused, or the ability to tweet from accounts.

Cat Zakrzewski

Graham says U.S. needs regulatory system similar to Europe

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) says he is working with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to create a tech regulatory regime “with teeth” that would be similar to the system in Europe, where policymakers have sought to aggressively regulate American tech giants.

Graham and Warren are odd bedfellows on opposite ends of the political spectrum, underscoring how there is increasing bipartisan momentum behind efforts to regulate the tech industry. Graham’s call for the U.S. to be more like Europe show how drastically the Republicans’ position on tech regulation has evolved in recent years, as the party historically favored a less stringent regulatory environment for businesses.

Graham said the new system would address privacy, content moderation and foreign interference, and that it would provide an appeals process for users when decisions are made to remove content.

Graham suggested that the FTC, which was founded in 1914, is not up to the task of regulating major tech businesses, which he said provide some benefits but also have a dark side.

“What you did today will not be in vain,” he told Zatko.

Peiter Zatko’s allegations to lawmakers in the hearing’s first 90 minutes painted a portrait of a company that has placed financial gains over establishing basic security protections that would allow it to track vast troves of sensitive data and who is accessing it.

Zatko’s answers to lawmakers have gone beyond what he disclosed in his 84-page complaint to the SEC and other regulators, revealing new details about his allegations of foreign influence from China and India on the platform. He’s also sought to ground his highly technical claims in terms and risks that lawmakers can easily understand, such as suggesting it would be possible for a Twitter employee to access the account data of all the senators on the committee.

The senators’ line of questioning has underscored that the blame does not lie on the company alone — but also on Congress and U.S. regulators who have not taken action to address the national security and privacy risks tech companies have allegedly created. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) floated the idea of creating a new tech enforcer to address data security and national security risks, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) criticized the Senate for hosting many hearings on tech policy but not passing any comprehensive legislation.

Tom Cotton

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) veered away from Zatko’s allegations of security failures and national security risks, opening his questioning with accusations about alleged censorship on the platform.

The line of questioning reflected the persistent political divisions within Congress over regulating social media companies. Lawmakers have presented a largely united front during Zatko’s hearing, focusing questions on foreign influence operations and data security practices. Republican lawmakers have made accusations about Twitter and other large tech companies silencing conservative viewpoints central to their midterm political messaging.

Social media companies banned Trump. Was that censorship?

Cotton questioned Zatko about the company’s outreach to him, saying they would lock his account unless he removed a tweet in 2020. Cotton said after phone calls with his staff, Twitter ultimately decided not to freeze his account. Zatko was not working at the company at the time of the incident and said he couldn’t weigh in on the specifics.

Senators questioning Peiter Zatko said that the company was allowing risks to U.S. national security to fester by employing suspected spies and being unwilling to invest in methods for effectively tracking what data they accessed within the company.

The senators shared additional allegations that had been withheld or redacted from the original whistleblower complaint, including that Twitter ads said to be paid for by the Chinese government could have elicited information including users’ locations on users who click on them.

Because logs of internal access were unwieldy, Zatko testified in his answers, Twitter engineers would likely be able to access even more sensitive data including phone numbers and emails associated with targeted accounts and give away or sell that information without being detected.

Zatko alleged that such failings seemed to be about misplaced priorities and pursuit of new users and markets.

Republican lawmakers on Tuesday peppered the whistleblower with questions about a news report that Twitter scrapped plans for a subscription service for adult content creators, detouring from the hearing’s stated focus on data security.

<a href="https://www.theverge.com/23327809/twitter-onlyfans-child-sexual-content-problem-elon-musk">According to the Verge</a>, the company considered monetizing the content in early 2022 by launching a competitor to the OnlyFans service, but opted against after discovering that the platform was not “effectively policing harmful sexual content on the platform.”

The problem behind all of Twitter’s other problems

Sens. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) both broached the topic, with Kennedy saying that “Twitter for a while was going to go into the porn business.”

Peiter Zatko said he “didn’t know that they were going to go into the porn business,” but said there were internal discussions about a “lack of tools to correctly regulate or constrain” to constrain “age-related information.”

U.S. Senators at the U.S. Capitol in Washington

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the United States may need a new government agency to enforce regulations against tech companies that would protect American consumers and national security interests.

“I’m not reaching any conclusions, but clearly what we’re doing right now is not working,” he said.

Blumenthal proposed the idea after raising concerns that the penalties the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department have imposed on Twitter and other tech companies do not go far enough to deter them from allegedly poor security practices. Earlier this year, the FTC and DOJ hit Twitter with a $150 million fine for deceptively using consumer data. Blumenthal compared that fine to the toll drivers pay to enter New York City, and Zatko said that amount would have been “of very little concern” when he was at the company.

“To effectively address this problem, we need to focus not only on restructuring the company, but also likely restructuring, reforming and energizing our regulatory apparatus,” Blumenthal said.

The former Twitter security chief called on lawmakers to make it easier for whistleblowers working at tech companies to come forward to federal regulators, including at agencies like the Federal Trade Commission that police data privacy violations.

“One thing that would be very helpful is that the FTC and other regulators don’t have laws or rules that would create whistleblower protection programs for people while they were still in these organizations,” Zatko said in response to a senator’s question about what legislation Congress should take up.

Here’s how Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen took thousands of documents

It’s a call that’s been echoed by other tech whistleblowers, including former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen, whose blockbuster allegations that the tech giant knew its products at times posed a risk to younger users rocked lawmakers in Washington.

Klobuchar slams congressional inaction on tech

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) delivered a blistering indictment of Congress’s track record on tech regulation, saying that lawmakers need to “be putting the mirror on ourselves” rather than focusing on the lack of action at regulatory agencies.

“Despite this probably being our 50th hearing … we have not passed one bill out of the U.S. Senate when it comes to competition, when it comes to privacy, when it comes to better funding the agencies, when it comes to the protection of kids,” she said.

Tech groups ask Supreme Court to block social media law

She said the lack of action has created an environment where companies can do everything from damaging newspapers to failing to respond to hacking.

Zatko testifies that Twitter couldn’t track foreign agents

Peiter Zatko told lawmakers that Twitter’s alleged failures to track its own employees’ system access made it impossible for the company to hunt for foreign agents working for the company and expel them on its own.

“One of the disturbing things I saw … was a lack of an ability to internally look for and identify inappropriate access within their own systems,” Zatko said in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

Zatko said Twitter could find such agents only when alerted by outside agencies, with the exception of an agent he believed with “high confidence” was working on behalf of the Indian government.

A lack of resources created problems at Twitter

Zatko alleged that when Twitter knew of a person on the inside acting on behalf of a foreign agent, there was a lack of centralized logging, which allows companies to track which employees tried to log in or how workers are using the system.

“One of the most senior engineers at the company came to me not long after I was there and said, ‘Mudge, you should know that this company doesn’t really have centralized loggings. We don’t log the activities of the system.’ I was surprised by this,” he said.

Twitter whistleblower asked about foreign agents in company

Twitter had two agents of the Indian government on its staff and was warned by the FBI that it was employing a Chinese spy as well, Sen. Grassley alleged at the opening of a hearing.

The opening statement by the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee credited disclosures by Zatko. Zatko’s July complaint to the SEC said that one Indian spy had been hired by the company. But sections of that 84-page complaint were redacted from the copy shared with Congress.

There had been no published mention of a Chinese spy on the staff, though it did cite FBI warnings about unspecified foreign agents.

In answering questions following the statement, Zatko said he was confident of one Indian spy in that country, whom he believed was tracking Twitter’s views and plans on negotiations with the Indian government.

He said that he had been informed a week before his January firing that the FBI had warned security staff that a Chinese agent for the Ministry of State Security was on the payroll.

Peiter Zatko testified that Twitter’s executives misled its shareholders, the public and the board instead of addressing security vulnerabilities when he raised them internally.

“What I discovered when I joined Twitter was this enormously influential company was over a decade behind industry security standards,” Zatko said. “The company’s cybersecurity failures make it vulnerable to exploitation, causing real harm to real people.”

Zatko: Twitter employees could access account information

Zatko alleged executive incentives led the company to prioritize profits over salary. He said Twitter doesn’t know what data it has so it can’t properly protect it. He also alleged that employees have far too much access to data.

Zatko’s journey from hacker to whistleblower

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington

Sen. Grassley criticized Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal for not appearing at Tuesday’s hearing, saying he declined the committee’s invite due to the company’s ongoing litigation with Musk.

“Many of the allegations directly implicate Mr. Agrawal, and he should be here to address them,” said Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to prepared remarks. Grassley (Iowa) also said he doesn’t see how Agrawal can maintain his position at Twitter if Zatko’s allegations are true.

Grassley focused on Zatko’s allegations of foreign influence on the Twitter platform, and said Tuesday’s hearing is part of a broader investigation that the Judiciary Committee is conducting into Zatko’s claims.

“Simply put, the whistleblower disclosures paint a disturbing picture of a company that’s solely focused on profits at any expense, including at the expense of the safety and security of its users,” according to the prepared remarks.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, kicked off the hearing by saying that the security flaws whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko exposed “may pose a direct threat to Twitter’s hundreds of millions of users, as well as America’s national security.”

The senator’s opening remarks signaled that lawmakers will probably focus on the national security risks associated with the vast troves of data that Twitter collects, and how it can be abused by foreign adversaries. In addition to citing the whistleblower’s allegations, Durbin (D-Ill.) sought to illustrate the broad implications Twitter’s data-collection practices can have for people, whether they’re attending a protest or seeking reproductive health care.

“At Twitter, the door to that vault is wide open,” Durbin said. “And that vault contains a lot more information about you than you can imagine.”

Twitter Whistleblower Congress

Senators have begun the highly anticipated hearing, kicking off Peiter Zatko’s testimony about alleged widespread security failures and foreign influence operations at Twitter.

Flanked by photographers and TV cameras, Zatko arrived minutes earlier at the hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, just a few corridors down from where he first testified more than two decades earlier to warn senators about security risks on the internet.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Testifies In SolarCity Trial

Before he was embroiled in a lawsuit over his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter, Musk regularly used the social media site to air his feelings and suggestions about Twitter itself.

The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/elon-musks-tweets/?itid=ap_lindachong&itid=lk_inline_manual_197" target=_blank>analyzed Musk’s 19,000 tweets to find more than 150 posts</a> he made about the company and its service. Musk has used Twitter to express his varying love and dissatisfaction with the site, and to air his thoughts on freedom of speech online. His tweets also show that he’s been aware of the issue of bots, or fake accounts, on Twitter for years.

Elon Musk’s 19,000 tweets reveal his complicated relationship with Twitter

Musk moved to terminate his intended purchase of Twitter in July, saying in part that the social media company provided misleading information about the number of fake accounts on its service. Twitter has pushed back against the claims, and sued Musk in court to force him to finish the deal.

Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s testimony before a Senate Committee on Tuesday could impact the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/25/twitter-elon-musk-deal/?itid=lk_inline_manual_201" target=_blank>ownership</a> battle unfolding over the social media company in Delaware Chancery Court.

Musk has already incorporated some of Zatko’s revelations into his arguments that he should be allowed to pull out of the deal and has fought to amend his claims.

New whistleblower allegations could factor into Twitter vs. Musk trial

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