Twitter seeks termination of FTC order over data practices
4:42 pm Thursday, July 13th, 2023
By Sheila Dang
(Reuters) – Twitter asked a U.S. court on Thursday to terminate a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission that governed the social media company’s data privacy protections, arguing that the regulatory agency has made “unceasing demands.”
In a filing with U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Twitter accused the FTC of bias and overreach, saying it had sent letters demanding actions by the company at a rate of one every other week since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October.
The FTC did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2011, Twitter and the FTC reached the consent decree after two data breaches at the social media company, with Twitter agreeing at the time that it would not mislead users about privacy protections.
Last year, Twitter agreed to pay $150 million in a settlement with the FTC and the Justice Department to resolve allegations that it misused private user information in order to target advertising.
Since Musk took over Twitter, the company has laid off thousands of employees and drastically cut costs, prompting questions about whether the company had the resources to comply with the FTC consent order.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Austin, Texas; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
