WASHINGTON: Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, the former head of security at Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N), will testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on September 13 regarding claims made in his whistleblower complaint that the social media giant deceived authorities.
According to a spokesperson for Zatko, the senator’s complaint has already been discussed with the staffs of the chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Zatko accused Twitter of falsely asserting that it had a strong security plan and making misleading claims about its defences against hackers and spam accounts.According to documents provided by congressional investigators, Zatko, a well-known hacker also known as “Mudge,” made a number of allegations in an 84-page complaint that Twitter prioritised user growth over reducing spam, with executives eligible to receive individual bonuses of up to $10 million linked to increases in daily users but nothing specifically for doing so.
The allegation has been called a “false narrative” by Twitter.The committee’s chairman, Senator Richard Durbin, and its top Republican member, Senator Chuck Grassley, announced that they would “examine this problem further with a full committee hearing this work period and take further steps as appropriate to get to the bottom of these worrisome accusations.”
