In a recent development, it has been reported that pieces of Twitter’s computer code have been leaked online, according to court filings. This news marks the latest hurdle for the social media giant, following Elon Musk’s tumultuous $44 billion takeover of the company in late 2022.
Subpoena Issued to GitHub
Twitter issued a subpoena on March 24 to GitHub, a software collaboration platform, after a user identified as “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” shared excerpts of Twitter’s source code without permission. Twitter’s counsel stated that the purpose of the subpoena is to identify the person responsible for the code leak. The documents related to the case were filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
GitHub’s Response
GitHub complied with Twitter’s request and removed the leaked code on the same day. The company confirmed that it publicly shares all DMCA takedowns, which occur when content is removed from a website at the request of a copyright holder, for the sake of transparency.
No Comment from Twitter
As of yet, Twitter has not commented on the matter, despite requests for a statement.
Musk’s Claims
Elon Musk has previously claimed that Twitter will open-source the code used to recommend tweets on March 31. He believes that people will discover “silly” issues, and that code transparency will be “incredibly embarrassing” at first.
Our “algorithm” is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things , but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found!
We’re developing a simplified approach to serve more compelling tweets, but it’s still a work in progress. That’ll also…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2023
DMCA Request Details
Relatest Post
According to the DMCA request shared by GitHub, the leaked code includes “proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools.” It is still unclear whether the source code used to recommend tweets is part of the leaked material.
Conclusion
This latest incident is a cause for concern for Twitter, especially given the increased scrutiny that social media platforms have faced in recent years. It is hoped that Twitter will be able to identify the person responsible for the leak and take appropriate measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. As for Musk’s claims about opening up Twitter’s code, it remains to be seen whether this will happen on March 31 as promised.
