Twitter’s source code, which is at the heart of any application, has allegedly been leaked, and the business fears a former employee is responsible. Portions of the code were available on GitHub, an online software development platform, for “at least several months,” but were removed after Facebook filed a “copyright infringement notification.” According to The New York Times, Twitter has also requested that the US District Court for the Northern District of California require GitHub to reveal the identity of the user, who appears to be titled “FreeSpeechEnthusiast.”
The pseudonym alludes to Twitter’s current owner, Elon Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist.”
According to the article, Twitter executives were only recently made aware of the source code breach. Developers frequently regard source codes as sacred since they can reveal weaknesses that can aid hackers in targeting people. To boost app security, organizations may only disclose portions of the source code. Musk also intends to release the code used to recommend tweets at the end of this month.
Musk stated in a tweet earlier this month that “our algorithm” is “overly complex and not fully understood internally.” Many silly things will be discovered, but we’ll fix them as soon as they’re discovered! We’re working on a more streamlined way to serve more intriguing tweets, but it’s still a work in progress. It, too, will be open source. Transparency in coding will be quite embarrassing at first, but it should result in a rapid boost in recommendation quality. Above all, we strive to gain your trust.”
It’s unclear whether hackers have already taken advantage of flaws discovered in the source code. Yet, the newest leak will be a setback for the corporation, which is looking for new methods to increase revenue. Since Musk’s takeover last year, more than half of Twitter’s global workforce has been laid off, with some leaving voluntarily. The company currently employs around 3000 people, down from 7,500 in September 2022. Brett Callow, a cybersecurity specialist, told the publication that “public posting of Twitter’s code is alarming.” He continues, “keeping your staff happy is one of the best ways to limit insider risk, and that clearly hasn’t been the case at Twitter.”
Musk maintains that Twitter is “being rapidly transformed.”
The company’s most recent initiative to raise the number of Twitter Blue subscribers is to remove legacy verified badges at the end of this month. This would compel former Twitter users who have the blue tick on their profile to sign up for a monthly payment in order to keep the coveted badge. Twitter has around 4.19 lakh verified profiles.