A lawyer working for Twitter warns that the social network could face billions in fines from the FTC over potential violations of the consent decree it’s been under – resulting from Elon Musk‘s rapid-fire changes that impact user privacy.
The note that was posted to the company’s Slack and was viewable by all staffers goes on to say that its author has ‘heard Alex Spiro (the current head of Legal) say that Elon is willing to take on a huge amount of risk in relation to this company and its users, because ‘Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.”‘
Since taking the helm of the company, Musk has fired almost half its workforce, ended remote work for the remaining employees, said there was ‘no way to sugarcoat’ the firm’s economic outlook and has gone back and forth with changes to its verification system and Twitter Blue.
A lawyer working for Twitter warns that the social network could face billions in fines from the FTC over potential violations of the consent decree it’s been under – resulting from Elon Musk’s rapid-fire changes that impact user privacy
‘Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love,’ the lawyer wrote in the message, which was obtained by The Verge
Since taking the helm of the company , Musk had fired almost half its workforce, ended remote work for the remaining employees, said there was ‘no way to sugarcoat’ the firm’s economic outlook and has gone back and forth with changes to its verification system and Twitter Blue
‘Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists. the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter the global town square you have all spent so long building, and we all love,’ the lawyer wrote in the message, which was obtained by The Verge.
In May, the FTC fined Twitter $150 million for violating the 2011 order and issued a modified order
‘I anticipate that all of you will de pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.
‘All of this is extremely dangerous for our users. Also, given that the FTC can (and will!) fine Twitter BILLIONS of dollars pursuant to the FTC Consent Order, extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform. Our users deserve so much better than this.’
The lawyer also wrote that the company’s CISO, chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer have all resigned.
‘If you feel uncomfortable about anything you’re being asked to do, you can call Twitter’s Ethics Hotline at (800) 275-4843 or submit a report at ethicshelpline.twitter.com. Please also note the FTC’s number is: 1-877-FTC-HELP. You may also remember that Mudge reached out to httos://whistlebloweraid.org,’ he wrote in the Slack message.
The lawyer also wrote in the note to colleagues that the company’s CISO, chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer have all resigned. Above: two of Musk’s Thursday tweets
Riana Pfefferkorn, who worked as Twitter’s outside counsel before its current problems, explained in a tweet that the firm’s FTC consent order, agreed to in 2011, requires that it conduct privacy reviews before making any changes to the product.
In May, the FTC fined Twitter $150 million for violating the 2011 order and issued a modified order.
Musk has introduced a raft of changes since he became head of Twitter almost two weeks ago.
He is pushing for users to pay $8 a month for ‘blue tick’ verification on Twitter and said in an email to staff that he wants the social media site to make half of its revenue from subscriptions.
Today, he tweeted that ‘far too many corrupt legacy Blue ‘verification’ checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months.’
Twitter Blue is an opt-in paid monthly subscription with certain perks, such as early access to the new editing tweets feature, that Musk is revamping.
Musk is also working on finding and suspending any verified bots, trolls and spam over the next few days, according to a separate email.
