Twitter has become the focus of US lawmakers’ scrutiny for its privacy practices under new owner Elon Musk’s management, with questions being posed as to whether the company complied with consumer protection laws amid the flurry of mass layoffs and high-profile resignations following the $44 billion takeover.
The investigation could have serious legal implications for Musk and bring Twitter to the forefront of intense global regulatory scrutiny.
Four US lawmakers, in a letter published last week, addressed Musk and the new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, and raised concerns over the high-profile departure of former Twitter official Ella Irwin. Irwin, who was the head of trust and safety and supervised content moderation, resigned from Twitter last week after Musk allowed a controversial documentary to be promoted on the platform.
The documentary, produced by conservative news outlet The Wire, featured two instances of “misgendering” transgender persons, according to early reports. Under Irwin’s management, the promo for the documentary had been labelled as “hateful content”. Subsequently, the Wire CEO protested and accused Twitter of “suppressing” their work.
With the cultural debate surrounding the documentary gaining momentum, Musk stepped into the controversy and remarked the content moderation concerning the documentary had been a “mistake” and that the documentary would be “definitely allowed” on the platform.
Later, several resignations, including Irwin’s, surfaced and rocked the social media firm. There was no word on the reason behind these departures from either Twitter or Irwin. Musk did allude to the Wire controversy in a comment under a tweet, however.
The lawmakers’ letter primarily focuses on concerns stemming from Irwin’s departure, which extends to Twitter’s compliance track record. The lawmakers have pointed out massive layoffs and “hasty launch of new products”, questioning whether Twitter has adequate mechanisms in place to meet its legal obligations laid out in the two consent orders signed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2022 and 2011, respectively.
The lawmakers have asked whether Twitter, following Musk’s acquisition, has a comprehensive cybersecurity programme to ensure the protection of user data. Moreover, in enquires whether Twitter has met obligations of reporting any potential data protection violations to the authorities concerned.
“Mr. Musk’s behavior reveals an apparent indifference towards Twitter’s longstanding legal obligations, which did not disappear when Mr. Musk took over the company,” reads the letter. “Regardless of his personal wealth, Mr. Musk is not exempt from the law, and neither is the company he purchased.”
The lawmakers have also questioned whether Twitter conducted a privacy and security assessment of Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that monetised the blue verification badges. The service turned out to be a fiasco at the time of launch, with several malicious actors and fake accounts buying the blue checkmark and impersonating celebrities, organisations and businesses.
As a result of negative publicity, several business opted out of Twitter following massive drops in their market value. Twitter has since been struggling to retain advertisers, who demand clarity on the safety of its new services and do not want their products advertised alongside potentially harmful content.
Twitter has also been on the radar of the European Union (EU) after it pulled out of the institution’s voluntary Code of Practice on online disinformation. Leading social media corporations, including Meta, Google, and TikTok, are signed up to the EU’s disinformation code, which was launched in June 2022 to address the exploitation of disinformation, enhance transparency, and curb the proliferation of bot accounts and malicious profiles.
Twitter has been asked to respond to the letter by June 18, 2023.
