Which, after all, is the core of Elon Musk’s grievance towards Twitter, and why he’s now looking for to exit his $44 billion Twitter takeover deal. Will Mudge’s testimony on this ingredient sway the steadiness extra in Musk’s favor on this respect?

That is simply one of many key issues of Mudge’s grievance, which has been filed with the SEC, the Division of Justice, and the FTC for additional motion.

Mudge, a well-respected net safety professional, who was employed by Twitter between late 2020 and early this yr, was initially introduced into the corporate by former CEO Jack Dorsey, within the wake of the platform’s largest ever hack, which noticed the accounts of Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, and extra taken over by a bunch of teenage fraudsters.

Dorsey, who revered Mudge’s historical past and expertise, reached out to him, and requested him to ‘assist the world’ by fixing Twitter’s safety, and bettering the general public dialog.

However Mudge says that his work was consistently hampered by Twitter’s executives, who have been extra pushed by public notion than truly serving the platform and its customers.

Amongst Mudge’s accusations:

• Twitter didn’t prioritize the safety of delicate person information, leaving many public figures, in addition to dissidents, at private danger, even after the 2020 hack
• The corporate prioritized person development over decreasing spam, with executives incentivized by vital particular person bonuses if the mDAU rely stored going up
• Mudge says that he warned colleagues that the corporate’s servers have been working out-of-date and susceptible software program, however nothing was executed to deal with this
• Twitter executives withheld information in regards to the variety of breaches and lack of safety for person information, ‘as a substitute presenting administrators with rosy charts measuring unimportant modifications’.
• Mudge believes that the Indian authorities had compelled Twitter to place one among its brokers on the payroll, offering them with direct entry to person information at a time of intense protests within the nation
• Twitter’s repeatedly didn’t erase information on customers who’ve explicitly requested such, attributable to flawed processes which meant that no central database might management such
• Mudge says that round half of Twitter’s 7,000 full-time staff had broad entry to the corporate’s inner software program and that entry was not intently monitored

In response, Twitter has stated that Mudge’s testimony is ‘riddled with inaccuracies’, whereas accusing Mudge of ‘looking for to inflict hurt on Twitter, its clients, and its shareholders’ attributable to his being fired from the corporate, which, Twitter says, associated to poor efficiency and management.

However it’ll be unimaginable for Twitter to dismiss the accusations fully, and once more, with Elon Musk seeking to exit his Twitter deal primarily based on the corporate’s deceptive statements on bots and spam, this could solely assist to assist his case.

Musk tweeted this in response to the whistleblower launch:

The FTC, in the meantime, says that it’s now reviewing the brand new allegations, whereas the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking for to fulfill with Mudge additional focus on his accusations.

It continues a horror run for Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who, since taking excessive job from Dorsey, has needed to take care of one high-profile controversy after one other, whereas additionally attempting to re-shape the corporate into the one which he needs to guide.

To this point, Agrawal has not precisely obtained glowing opinions from former employees, and it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if Dorsey and former product chief Kayvon Beykpour, who was additionally dismissed my Agrawal earlier this yr, are questioned about Agrawal’s management as a part of the upcoming Musk/Twitter courtroom trial.

That might find yourself forming a key a part of Musk’s case towards the app. If Musk and Co. can set up that Twitter has a tradition of secrecy, and is prepared to mislead everybody, together with its personal board, in regards to the extent of its issues, then it might properly be viable that Twitter has certainly intentionally misled the market in regards to the presence of bots on the platform.

As a reminder, Twitter says that bot accounts make up solely 5% of its lively 238 million ‘monetizable every day lively customers’, which is a customized metric that Twitter launched in 2019 to extra precisely symbolize its precise advert attain.

As defined by Twitter on the time:

“Monetizable DAU are Twitter customers who log in and entry Twitter on any given day by way of twitter.com or our Twitter purposes which might be capable of present adverts.”

The intent of mDAU is to symbolize potential advert attain, not simply customers on the whole, which then provides the market a extra correct perspective on the corporate’s potential monetary efficiency.

However Twitter’s technique for measuring bots solely sees the corporate pattern 100 lively accounts per day, amounting to 9k accounts examined each quarter. That’s the equal of 0.0038% of Twitter’s mDAU determine.

Which looks like a fractional quantity, and if Musk and Co. can embed the concept that Twitter has solely used this measure as a method to placate the market, and certainly its personal board, in alignment with these broader disclosure tendencies, that could possibly be a major blow in Twitter’s protection.

Or worse, Twitter might additionally face penalties ‘within the a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars}’ if these accusations are confirmed correct. That will properly represent Materials Opposed Impact, which is the very clause that Musk’s group is looking for to make use of to exit the deal.

Which then raises the query – was Mudge prompted by Musk’s group to launch his statements presently?

Mudge has said that he has had no contact with Musk or his group, however Musk had since requested a briefing from Mudge on his expertise.

Both method, it’s a serious blow for Twitter, on the whole phrases, given the potential penalties that would observe, but in addition with respect to the Musk deal, and the billions of {dollars} on the road for the app.

If nothing else, it paints a transparent image of dysfunction on the app, which is one other ingredient of Musk’s considerations with the corporate.

Once more, 2022 has not been nice for Twitter, and it appears set to get a lot worse but.