Twitter misleading the public, whistleblower says

Image source, The Washington Post/Getty

The firm is "misleading the public" about how secure the platform really is according to Peiter Zatko.

He said that users' data is not protected and that too many staff have access to it.

Mr Zatko gave evidence after making an 84-page whistleblowing complaint about security practices inside the social network.

He was let go by the firm.

He said that one-time fines imposed by regulators over data protection breeches didn't bother him at all.

Mr Zatko described an organisation that prioritised revenue generation over other things.

He became emotional at the start of the hearing when he spoke about his role as a whistle blower.

He said that employees had expressed concerns to him that they were carrying advertising from "organizations which may or may not be associated with the Chinese government".

He said that he was told it would be a problem to lose that revenue stream.

He said he was troubled by the attitude of the social networking site. Half of the company was made up of engineers and they had access to users' data. He said that they did not record their activity.

He supports Musk's claims that the platform has more fake accounts than it admits.

The hearing is unrelated to Mr Musk's attempt to pull out of his deal to buyTwitter for $44 billion.

A high-profile attack on the platform's celebrity accounts led to Mr Zatko being hired by Jack Dorsey.

People's personal information was put at risk, according to the whistle blower. There is information held about users.

• Phone number
• IP address - from which a physical address could potentially be found.
• Email address
• Type of device
• Type of browser
• Location a user connected from

He said that the data could allow someone to be targeted.

Mr Zatco is well-known in the information security community, having worked for both the US government and the internet giant.

John said he was a pretty remarkable guy.

The opening remarks of the US Judiciary Committee stated that Parag Agrawal, the CEO of the social networking site, had declined to attend the hearing.

Mr Zatko lost his job due to ineffective leadership and poor performance, and his allegations are both inaccurate and inconsistent, according to the social media site.