Twitter whistleblower brings his critiques to Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former security chief at Twitter will appear before Congress Tuesday with alarming allegations that the social platform misled regulators about its cyber defenses and efforts to control millions of fake accounts.

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert, will appear Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to lay out his concerns. Zatko's claims could also affect Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's attempt to back out of his $44 billion deal to acquire the social platform. Musk claims that Twitter has long underreported spam bots on its platform and cites that as a reason to nix the deal he struck in April.

Zatko was the head of security for the influential platform until he was fired early this year. He filed a whistleblower complaint in July with Congress, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among his most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.

The Judiciary Committee chairman, Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, called Zatko's accusations “serious business."

“If it's anywhere along the lines that (he) suggested, I think it's a matter of grave personal-privacy concern," Durbin told reporters Monday. “The question is whether information gathered by Twitter has been used for purposes which we're not aware of."

Many of Zatko’s claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. Twitter has called Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative ... riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies” and lacking important context.

Zatko also accuses the company of deception in its handling of automated “spam...