US government sues Twitter as it claims company misled users about data privacy

Twitter has been going through a lot of internal changes recently, but this is only part of the company’s crisis. The US government on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Twitter as it claims that the company misled and failed to tell its users how their data was used for advertising.

As reported by CNN journalist Brian Fung, the lawsuit was filed today in the Northern District of California, and it targets Twitter for how it manages users’ contact information.

The US government argues that between May 2013 and September 2019, Twitter misled its users by saying that data such as phone numbers and email addresses were used exclusively to protect their accounts. However, this data was also used to help advertisers reach the social network’s audience.

In another accusation, the US government notes that Twitter also failed to ensure that protected account tweets and direct messages were inaccessible to its employees.

Specifically, the Administrative Complaint asserted that Twitter had engaged in deceptive acts or practices by misrepresenting that users could control who had access to their tweets through a “protected account” or could send private “direct messages” that could only be viewed by the recipient when, in fact, Twitter lacked reasonable safeguards to ensure those choices were honored, such as restricting employee access to nonpublic user information based on a person’s job requirements.

As a result, Twitter would have violated the FTC Act and Order of 2011, which “prohibits the company from making misrepresentations regarding the security of nonpublic consumer information.” The lawsuit seeks “civil penalties” for Twitter’s violations, in addition to a permanent injunction to ensure that Twitter will comply with the law.

Twitter’s internal challenges

Things don’t look good for Twitter recently. Earlier this year, Elon Musk proposed buying Twitter in a $44 billion deal. However, while this led some of the social network’s executives to leave the company, Musk has now put the deal “temporarily on hold,” which has raised uncertainties surrounding the deal.

At the same time, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey has now left the social network’s board of directors. In a meeting with the board today, in which Dorsey announced that he’s leaving Twitter, no one mentioned the deal with Elon Musk.

Now the company has to deal with the US government’s lawsuit and its new policy to combat misinformation.