A lawyer at Twitter has warned that Elon Musk is putting the company at risk of billions in FTC fines following dramatic changes to the company’s privacy and security teams. According to the internal letter leaked to the Verge, the company current head of legal scoffed the concerns, allegedly saying: “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC.”
The Verge reports that Twitter employees are concerned after Elon Musk’s changes to the service bypassed Twitter’s standard data governance processes, jeopardizing user privacy and security. Company lawyers are now encouraging employees to seek whistleblower protection “if you feel uncomfortable about anything you’re being asked to do.”
Elon Musk celebrates Texas (SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty)
Two sources and an internal message seen by the Verge have confirmed that Twitter’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all resigned from the firm. Their departures come at about the same time as censorship-happy leftist Yoel Roth, but have very different implications for Twitter’s business — these executives held responsibility for ensuring that the company operated within its consent decree with the FTC.
An attorney at the company’s privacy team wrote in a note posted to one of Twitter’s Slack channels: “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 company attorney that posted this message is being kept anonymous by Twitter but also stated that they have “heard Alex Spiro (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.’” The letter contends that with top compliance executives out of the picture, engineers will be forced to certify that the code they write is compliant with the FTC.
A portion of the letter, which can be read in full at the Verge, reads:
Everyone here should also know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.
Over the last two weeks. Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter. He chose to enter into that agreement! All of us are being put through this as a result of the choices he made.
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.
I have heard Alex Spiro (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.” I have heard another leader in the Legal department say that because of the tight SLA’s (of two weeks?!) between product inception > launch, Legal will “have to shift the burden to engineers” to self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws. This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers: I anticipate that all of you will be pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.
In May, the FTC settled with Twitter after the company was found to be targeting ads using personal user information. According to the note to employees, if Twitter does not comply with the settlement, the FTC can fine the company billions of dollars.
Read more at the Verge here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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