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Twitter will pay a $150 million fine and put in place new safeguards to resolve allegations through federal regulators that the social platform failed to privacy the user’s knowledge over a six-year period.
The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement with Twitter on Wednesday. Regulators allege that Twitter violated a 2011 FTC order by misleading users about how it kept their private information private and secure.
From May 2013 to September 2019, Twitter told users that it collected their phone numbers and email addresses for account security purposes. But it did not disclose that it would also use the data to allow corporations to send targeted online ads to users of the platform. the government alleged.
Regulators also alleged, in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, that Twitter falsely claimed it complied with U. S. privacy agreements. The U. S. Government with the European Union and Switzerland prohibit corporations from handling user data in a manner contrary to legal purposes through users.
“Twitter received the knowledge of users under the pretext of exploiting it for security purposes, but then ended up also to target users with ads,” FTC President Lina Khan said in a statement. “This practice has reached more than 140 million Twitter users while expanding Twitter’s main source of revenue. “
The San Francisco-based company has more than 229 million users worldwide.
The $150 million fine and new enforcement measures required by the regulation will need to be approved by a California federal court.
The FTC’s 2011 order alleged serious deficiencies in the security of Twitter’s knowledge that allowed hackers to obtain unauthorized administrative information from Twitter, adding access to users’ private information.
“Maintaining knowledge and respecting privacy is something we take incredibly seriously, and we have cooperated with the FTC every step of the way,” Twitter’s lead privacy officer Damien Kieran said in a blog post Wednesday. He said the company has taken steps in agreement with the FTC to update operations and make other innovations “to ensure that people’s non-public knowledge remains safe and their privacy protected. “
Twitter announced in November the formation of a new knowledge governance committee within the company.
The deal was announced on the day of Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting. The drama of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion acquisition of Twitter has haunted the company for weeks. Musk, who is one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders, reviewed the funding plan on Wednesday. for its proposed acquisition, raising investors’ hopes that it still intends to close the deal.
Twitter exerts an unprecedented influence on news, politics and society thanks to its public nature, undeniable interface and immediacy. Some experts fear Musk will moderate the content of rules that offer some cover against white supremacy, hate speech and threats of violence. The platform banned former President Donald Trump following the attack on the U. S. Capitol in January 2021.
Additional reports via The Associated Press