Twitter CEO Said to Term Whistleblower Claims 'Inaccurate'; Firm Reiterates Spam User Count to SEC: Reports

The US SEC had reportedly asked the microblogging service for details on its methodology to calculate the percentage of these users in June

By David Delima | Updated: 25 August 2022 00:30 IST

Photo Credit: Reuters

Twitter is gearing up to challenge Elon Musk in court in October

Highlights

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal reportedly addressed employees on Wednesday
He is said to have told staff a whistleblowers claims were 'inaccurate'
Twitter also reportedly defended its spam user count to the US SEC

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal reportedly told the company's employees at an internal meeting that the accusations by a former employee and whistleblower were inaccurate. The company was rocked by allegations of poor security against spam accounts and hackers on Tuesday, levelled by its former chief of security. Twitter is also preparing to engage in a legal tussle with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over the latter's takeover bid for the microblogging service. The company also defended its spam and bot account enumeration to a US regulator, as per a report.

According to a report by Reuters, based on audio from an internal meeting at Twitter, company CEO Parag Agrawal addressed employees at a meeting on Wednesday, stating that the claims made by whistleblower and former chief of security, Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko, were "foundationally, technically and historically inaccurate."

The Twitter CEO also told employees that the company would have to "narrow its focus" to fewer things, to be proportionate to the number of people at the company, according to the report, which states that attrition at the company is currently at 18.3 percent.

Government Forced Twitter to Put Agent on Payroll, Whistleblower Says: Report

Ahead of the company's upcoming legal battle with Elon Musk, who has claimed that Twitter has misrepresented the amount of bot and spam users on its platform, the service also told the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 22, that it had only 5 percent of users that were spam accounts, according to another report based on a regulatory filing.

The US SEC had reportedly asked the microblogging service for details on its methodology to calculate the percentage of these users in June.

Elon Musk has alleged that Twitter misrepresented the number of spam and bot accounts on its platform, as he tries to extricate himself from his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,51,000 crore) takeover bid for the platform. Musk and Twitter are set to face off in in a court battle in October, which will decide whether the Tesla CEO must complete the terms of the deal to acquire Twitter.

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Further reading: Twitter, Parag Agrawal, SEC, Spam Accounts, Bots

David Delima

Email David Delima

As a writer on technology with Gadgets 360, David Delima is interested in open-source technology, cybersecurity, consumer privacy, and loves to read and write about how the Internet works. David can be contacted via email at DavidD@ndtv.com, on Twitter at @DxDavey, and Mastodon at mstdn.social/@delima. More