Peiter Zatko’s allegations lead to questions about big tech’s responsibility towards users in authoritarian countries.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Twitter whistleblower Peiter Zatko’s claims that the social media giant has endangered users in China have raised questions about big tech’s responsibility to protect dissidents from state persecution.
Zatko, Twitter’s former head of security, has alleged that the social media platform became “dependent” on revenue from Chinese entities, which, some company figures feared, could be privy to information that would allow them to identify and glean sensitive information on users in China.
Twitter, like Facebook and Google, is banned in mainland China, where open dissent against the ruling Communist Party carries the risk of severe punishment. Chinese users can only access the platform through an encrypted connection known as a virtual private network (VPN), the use of which is also prohibited.
“Twitter executives knew that accepting Chinese money risked endangering users in China (where employing VPNs or other circumvention technologies to access the platform is prohibited) and elsewhere,” Zatko said in his disclosure, which was filed last month with several US government agencies, including the Department of Justice, and made public this week by The Washington Post and CNN.
“Twitter executives understood this constituted a major ethical ‘compromise.’ Mr. Zatko was told that Twitter was too dependent upon the revenue stream at this...
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said seven recent claims by US President Donald Trump about Iran were “false” and warned that the Strait of Hormuz “will not remain open” if th...