Twitter Source Code Released on GitHub

Twitter has confirmed that certain parts of its source code, which forms the basis of its social network, were released online, according to a legal filing with the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California on Friday, stating that it had requested internet hosting service GitHub to remove the code. The platform complied and confirmed that the content had been disabled.

Twitter has emphasized that the unauthorized postings violate its copyrights, and has requested the court to identify the person or group responsible for the leak. The company is seeking the disclosure of personal information, including names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social media profile data, and IP addresses associated with the user account "FreeSpeechEnthusiast," which is believed to be the source of the leak. The name is believed to be a nod to Twitter owner Elon Musk's self-proclaimed support for free speech.

Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity researcher and consultant, stated that while it is unclear if the leaked code poses an immediate cybersecurity threat to users, it does highlight the internal turbulence within Twitter. Olejnik suggested that the main risk is reputational and that insider risk is a significant problem for big tech companies. He believes that the leak could damage trust between Twitter's employees or internal teams.

Earlier this month, Elon Musk announced that Twitter would make all the code used to recommend tweets available on March 31. He acknowledged that some embarrassing issues might emerge, but he promised to address them promptly, leading to rapid improvements in recommendation quality. The leak creates another challenge for Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October and subsequently took it private. The platform has experienced chaos, with significant layoffs and advertisers departing due to looser rules on potentially inflammatory content. The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating Musk's mass layoffs at Twitter and attempting to obtain his internal communications as part of ongoing oversight into the company's privacy and cybersecurity practices, according to documents described in a congressional report.