New Delhi, Aug 24 : As the legal battle between Twitter and Elon Musk gets more complicated, the microblogging platform is said to be combining its teams for misinformation and spam to tackle the issue of false and harmful content on its site.The new organization is scheduled to be renamed Health Products and Services (HPS) HPS’ and will be headed by Ella Irwin, Twitter’s VP of Product.
Twitter confirmed this to TechCrunch on Wednesday, but without giving any further details.
“The change in our organization reflects our constant commitment to prioritise and orient on our teams in pursuit of our goals,” said the company.
“Stopping bad actors and ensuring more transparency about the way we work to create an effective platform and also helping to promote and encourage diverse thinking and discussions remains the foundation of every aspect of our work and how we structure the teams we have,” The company said.
The existence of bots on Twitter is the root of the legal dispute between the CEO of Twitter Parag Agrawal and Musk, which resulted in the denial of the $44 billion deal to take over the company by Musk.Tesla CEO.
The news is in the midst of a fresh controversy over the ex-head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko who claimed that Twitter did not disclose the real number of bots that were on the platform as well as mislead federal regulators regarding the security of data for users.
Agrawal on Tuesday slammed at Zatko and said his false assertions are “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and presented without significant context”.
“There are reports that make the claims regarding Twitter’s security, privacy and data security practices reported by Mudge Zatko an ex- Twitter executive who was fired in January 2022 over poor leadership and ineffective results,” Agrawal said in an internal memo addressed to staff.
Zatko also claimed that the Indian government compelled the micro-blogging platform to employ an “government agent” and give him access to user’s sensitive information, a claim that was slammed by Twitter.
Agrawal said that this was difficult and confusing to understand “given Mudge was accountable for a variety of aspects of this work which he is now misrepresenting over six months following his departure”.
In the midst of the ongoing legal battle, Musk has also challenged Agrawal to hold an open discussion about fake accounts as well as spam.
na/vd
