WASHINGTON — Seven Democratic senators on Thursday called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Twitter has violated a privacy agreement with the agency since Elon Musk took over the company.
In a letter to FTC chairman Lina Khan, lawmakers said they were concerned that Mr. had violated. settlement with the supervisor.
The senators who signed the letter included Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
An FTC spokesperson declined to comment. The agency previously said it “follows recent developments on Twitter with great concern”. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr Musk, who completed a $44 billion buyout of Twitter last month, has turned the social media company upside down. He’s cut 50 percent of the company’s workforce, made changes to the site’s verification program and tried to allay fears among advertisers about the direction of the service. On Wednesday, he told the remaining employees in an email that they had to decide at 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday whether to stay or leave the company.
Twitter settled with the FTC in 2011 for privacy violations, requiring the company to regularly report on its privacy practices and open its doors to audits. But last week several of its security executives resigned a day before a deadline for Twitter to file a report with the FTC
In internal posts later that day, an employee wrote about the firing and suggested that internal privacy reviews of Twitter products under Mr. Musk were not proceeding as they should under the FTC settlement. Mr. Musk later told staff that the company would abide by the FTC settlement.
In their letter to the FTC, lawmakers expressed concern over the executives’ departure, as well as Mr. Musk’s changes to the Twitter account verification program, which they said had been a boon to scammers on the website.
“We urge the committee to vigorously monitor its consent decree with Twitter and to take enforcement action against breaches or business practices that are unfair or deceptive, including imposing civil penalties and imposing liability on individual Twitter users. managers, where necessary,” the lawmakers said.
