Twitter To Pay $150 Million Fine

Twitter will pay a $150 million fine over accusations it improperly sold user data – NPR

Twitter has agreed to pay $150 million in fines after the US government sued the social media company on Wednesday, alleging that it misled consumers about how it protects their personal data. The company said that the use of users’ personal information for ads was was not intended.

“This practice affected more than 140 million Twitter users, while boosting Twitter‘s primary source of revenue,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.

The FTC and the Justice Department filed a suit against Twitter on Wednesday. The suit claims that Twitter failed to mention that it collected users’ phone numbers and email addresses for advertising and instead presented that they were only for personal verification on the Twitter platform.

The FTC also alleges that Twitter misrepresented to its users how it protected their nonpublic contact information and violated a 2011 settlement by making misrepresentations regarding the security of nonpublic consumer information.

Twitter said Wednesday that the use of personal information for ads was “inadvertent,” and that the incident was first disclosed in 2019.

“This issue was addressed as of September 17, 2019, and today we want to reiterate the work we’ll continue to do to protect the privacy and security of the people who use Twitter,” Damien Kieran, Twitter’s chief privacy officer, posted in a blog post on the companies site.

Twitter has agreed to pay $150 million to settle the FTC lawsuit. It will also be required to inform users about its use of contact information for advertising purposes.

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