Topline
Some portions of Twitter’s source code were leaked online, according to a court filing by the company, in what is the latest in a series of major operational challenges faced by the platform in the past few months, including major technical glitches and outages.
A view of Twitter’s logo at Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco, California.
Key Facts
Portions of the source code—the core building blocks of the social media platform—were leaked on the collaborative code sharing platform, GitHub, by a user named “FreeSpeechEnthusiast.”
On Friday, Microsoft-owned GitHub removed the leaked code and the leaker’s account from its site after Twitter filed a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Twitter has also issued a subpoena seeking details about the leaker—including their name, email, IP address and other details—from GitHub. according to a filing made with the Northern District of California federal court.
Twitter’s subpoena also seeks details about any users who may have downloaded, shared or modified the source code data uploaded by the leaker.
The nature of the leaked source code and any potential risks it may cause to Twitter’s security remain unclear at the moment.
What To Watch For
Earlier this month, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced the platform will make “all code used to recommend tweets” open source on March 31. Musk claimed Twitter’s algorithm is “overly complex & not fully understood internally,” but added this transparency should allow the company to improve the quality of its recommendations and earn user trust. It is unclear, the leak on GitHub has any links to Twitter’s algorithm or Musk’s announcement.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/03/27/some-of-twitters-source-code-was-leaked-online-court-filing-shows/