Twitter has been going through a lot of internal changes lately, but that’s only part of the company’s crisis. The US government on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Twitter, alleging that the company misled users and did not tell its users how their data was used for advertising.
According to CNN journalist Brian FangThe lawsuit was filed today in the Northern District of California and is targeting Twitter over the way it manages user contact information.
The US government claims that between May 2013 and September 2019, Twitter misled its users into saying that data such as phone numbers and email addresses were used solely to protect their accounts. However, this data has also been used to help advertisers reach the social media audience.
In another allegation, the US government notes that Twitter also failed to ensure that protected account tweets and direct messages were not available to its employees.
Specifically, the Administrative Lawsuit alleged that Twitter engaged in deceptive practices or actions by misrepresenting that users can control who has access to their Tweets through a “secure account” or can send private “direct messages” that may only be viewed by the recipient when, in fact, Twitter did not have reasonable safeguards in place to enforce that choice, such as restricting employees’ access to non-public user information based on the individual’s job requirements.
As a result, Twitter would violate the 2011 Federal Trade Commission Act and Order, which “prohibits a company from misrepresenting the security of non-public consumer information.” The lawsuit seeks “civil penalties” for Twitter’s violations, in addition to a permanent injunction to ensure Twitter complies with the law.
Twitter Internal Trouble
Twitter hasn’t been doing very well lately. Earlier this year, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion. However, while this caused some social media executives to leave the company, Musk has now put the deal on hold “temporarily,” causing uncertainty around the deal.
At the same time, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from the social network’s board of directors. In today’s board meeting, where Dorsey announced he was leaving Twitter, no one mentioned the Elon Musk deal.
The company now has to deal with a US government lawsuit and its new anti-disinformation policy.
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