One current Twitter employee said several other members of the site’s privacy and security unit have also resigned, while another said the rest are trying to stem a wave of abuse at the company’s expanded paid service, Twitter Blue.
The Federal Trade Commission, which reached its latest approval decree with Twitter in May, said it was “following developments on Twitter with deep concern.”
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our approval decisions,” said Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs. “Our revised approval order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are ready to use them.”
Privacy officers said they are more concerned about the rapid spread of new features without the full security reviews required by the Federal Trade Commission’s approval decree. They also objected to Musk’s order in an email Wednesday evening, a first for employees since he took control of the company, that all employees begin working in the office 40 hours a week, starting Thursday.
Musk’s email didn’t touch on Twitter’s long tradition of flexible remote work. Instead, she indicated a dire need to make money from Twitter Blue. “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance that Twitter will not survive the next economic downturn,” Musk warned. “We need about half of our revenue to be subscriptions.”
Former FTC officials warned that the departure of key privacy and security officials, as well as some of Musk’s proposed changes to Twitter’s products, opened the company to a serious regulatory risk.
David C. Vladeck, who was director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Consumer Protection at the time of Twitter’s first settlement with the agency, said the departures and chaos raise questions about whether “compliance requirements will fall through the loopholes.”
Vladeck said the penalties could be significantly higher for Twitter if it allegedly violates its agreement with the Federal Trade Commission for a second time. “There will be very significant complications of the last fine,” he said, referring to the May penalty that imposed a fine of $150 million. “You have to add a decimal point to that.”
Twitter entered into a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission after allegations that it deceptively used email and phone numbers that it said it was collecting for security purposes to target users with ads. The Federal Trade Commission claimed that this violated the 2011 consent decree it reached with the company.
The new decree requires Twitter to launch enhanced privacy and security programs, which were due to be audited by a third party. Under this program, Twitter is required to conduct a privacy assessment of any new products it launches.
Slack’s employee letter said the rapid release of products and changes without effective security reviews was “extremely dangerous” for users.
It said engineers would have to bear the burden of certifying products to comply with Federal Trade Commission agreements, exposing them to significant personal legal risks.
The collapse of security leadership is particularly fraught because the FTC’s scrutiny was expected by January, according to two people familiar with the timeline.
One said that Kisner and other executives were hiring, despite the company-wide freeze, in a frantic attempt to meet compliance rules before then.
“It’s in dire need of people,” said one of them, who was among nearly half of the company’s workers laid off last week.
Slack’s letter posted a link to Whistleblower Aid, a law firm that represented former security chief Peter Zatko when he filed a complaint this year with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other officials citing alleged FTC violations, including what he said were insufficient. • Log access to sensitive data and widespread use of outdated software.
The letter warned that the FTC could fine Twitter “billions of dollars”. The author claimed that they heard Alex Spiro, Musk’s chief attorney, say that Elon “is willing to take a great deal of risk in response to this company and users, because ‘Elon is putting rockets in space, and he’s not afraid of the FTC.'” Spiro didn’t immediately respond. On request to comment on the note.
Other employees said they took paid leave Thursday as evidence of disapproval.
Kisner, brought in by Zatko, has been admired within Twitter and seen as a mainstay amid the recent chaos.
“Twitter has had several major security incidents over the past several years due to poor internal controls and lax data architecture,” said Alex Stamos, former head of data security at Facebook and Yahoo. “The team led by Dr. Kessner has taken serious steps to bridge these shortcomings, as required by Twitter under the Federal Trade Commission’s approval decree.”
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