Twitter Has Bigger Problems Than The Whistleblower – But Now The Spotlight Is On The Company | International Association of Digital Marketing Professionals (IADMP)

By Adam

PARIS, FRANCE – FEBRUARY 7: The Twitter logo appears on this screen illustration … [+]A photo of an iPhone standing in front a display screen that displays a Twitter logo. This was taken in Paris on February 7, 2019. Today’s Wall Street results showed that Twitter posted higher than anticipated Wall Street results in the past three months, with net profit rising 28% and revenue increasing 4% respectively. However, the stock price is on the decline. Twitter announced that it will no longer give numbers after losing 5 million users monthly by the end 2018. The company announced this in its fourth quarter financial results. It will be effective in the second quarter 2019. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images

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It is common for criminals to believe it is not a crime even if you are caught. Most law-abiding citizens believe that it isn’t what makes it illegal, but rather, the crime was committed before you were caught.

Many companies don’t realize the severity of their internal problems until someone whistleblowers them. Twitter’s ex-security chief has warned legislators and regulators that Twitter didn’t seem to have enough resources or incentive to accurately measure bots. This was according to a 200 page whistleblower disclosure.

Peiter Zatko (or “Mudge”) filed the disclosure in July with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Department of Justice.

Experts now say that the revelation is not unexpected.

James Bailey, professor of management at George Washington University School of Business explained that “a complex social media company as large as Twitter will stumble.” This is a new field. Twitter is not a policing tool. It is impossible to police Twitter because there are so many decisions and no precedent. This is an evolutionary normal, regardless of whether it’s content presentation or data security.

Major allegations, Cybersecurity concerns included

According to what we know now, Zatko’s whistleblower complaint involves two main claims. The first is that Zatko had undercounted the spam and bots accounts. This is due to Elon Musk’s offer of purchase.

These allegations support the claim that Twitter has been infested in large part with bot accounts and other interactions. This is according to Dr. Christopher Whyte of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.Musk is particularly influenced by the assertion that the company doesn’t care much about reducing bot access.

The issue of bots may be serious but Mike Chapple, an IT professor at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business and the author of Cyberwarfare: Information Operations within a Connected World

According to Chapple (a former National Security Agency computer scientist), “Zatko,” a respected cybersecurity expert, claims that Twitter’s infrastructure has out-of date software and is vulnerable. If true, it is the type security vulnerability that can lead to major security incidents. Equifax’s 2017 massive data breach was caused by an unpatched program. There are thousands more such breaches every year. An attacker could have one critical weakness in an unpatched system that …read more

Source:: Social Media Explorer