“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
Today’s column is written by Vuk Janosevic, co-founder and CEO of Blindnet.
Twitter has a trust crisis. Three weeks ago, the world watched as the social media giant’s “verified” accounts experiment failed, with fake accounts impersonating actual verified brands and users. Now, experts are worried about an even larger trust issue: the apparent data privacy emergency that’s unfolding at Twitter HQ.
Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the heads of privacy, security and compliance all abruptly left the company. The legal department is scrambling to pick up the pieces, asking engineers to “self-certify compliance.” The door is open for massive privacy breaches.
Even Twitter’s own legal team is sounding the alarm. A lawyer with the company has reportedly expressed concern that “all of [Twitter’s engineers] will be pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.”
From the outside, it seems like Twitter’s privacy infrastructure is essentially nonexistent. The platform has to make changes now, before it causes irreparable damage to its brand.
Users at risk
We live in a society where we expect our privacy to be respected. We don’t want businesses snooping around in our personal lives, and we certainly don’t want them sharing our information without our consent. At Twitter, the system that was in place to protect user privacy has been jeopardized.
Even before Musk’s takeover, Twitter had a history of privacy violations. In 2011, the company was punished by the FTC for violating privacy laws surrounding user consent. But not much has changed. In fact, they were fined $150 million this past May for similar violations. The fact that their privacy infrastructure has gotten even worse is a major red flag.
What’s more, the platform has been used to spread misinformation. There is a legitimate risk that users could be targeted by ads based on their personal data. But if users do not consent to having their data used in these ways, they could be exploited without even knowing it.
Twitter’s time to act is now
When companies are fined for privacy violations – especially when they make it a matter of habit – it can become very costly. According to one lawyer on Twitter’s privacy team, Twitter is facing “billions of dollars” in fines from the FTC.
And there’s another price to pay: reputation. Users are the lifeblood of any social media platform, and without them, Twitter would cease to exist. If people continue to leave Twitter because of privacy concerns, it could have a devastating impact on the company’s bottom line.
Data shows that companies who respect user privacy are more likely to build trust with their users, which leads to brand loyalty. On the other hand, companies that violate user privacy risk losing the trust of their customers, often leading to a decline in business. In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s essential to keep your customers happy. Respecting their privacy is a key piece of that.
Twitter is at a crossroads
Twitter needs to do more to protect users’ data and privacy if it wants to regain trust. Unless Twitter takes steps to address this issue, the trust crisis will only continue to grow.
For starters, Twitter should ensure that proper privacy oversight is in place. Tasking overworked engineers with “self-certifying” compliance is far from a genuine effort to preserve users’ privacy if no one else is checking in on their work.
But even without that oversight, better privacy can still be achieved. One possible solution is to take a proactive approach with engineers building privacy-preserving software. This would ensure that privacy is being taken into account during the production phase, thus limiting the need for oversight after the fact. This would be a major undertaking, but it’s necessary if Twitter wants to regain the trust of its users.
Data privacy is a complex and ever-evolving issue, but Twitter can’t afford for its crisis to get worse.
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