Reports claim Twitter employees can read DMs, Twitter denies
What's the story
Project Veritas, a group of investigative journalists led by American activist James O'Keefe, recently released an undercover video which shows Twitter 'employees' admitting that they have access to users' direct messages (DMs).
In the video, Twitter's Senior Network Security Engineer Clay Haynes can be heard saying that hundreds of employees have access to "everything you post online."
However, Twitter has denied the allegations.
Accusation
I have access to private, obscene content: Twitter employee
In the video footage, Twitter employees also admit that the microblogging platform analyzes user information to create "virtual profiles" that are sold to advertisers.
Haynes says he is paid to access and analyze flagged tweets which includes browsing through a lot of obscene content. A software engineer, Mihai Florea, said that users are "paying" to use Twitter with their own personal data.
Response
We do not proactively seek out private messages: Twitter
However, Twitter has denied all allegations and said, "We do not proactively review DMs. Period."
"A limited number of employees have access to such information, for legitimate work purposes, and we enforce strict access protocols for those employees," Twitter added.
A former employee confirmed that DMs are only accessed "in response to a report," meaning when someone complains of say, harassment or website violation.
Quote
Twitter's policy regarding Direct Messages
Here's what Twitter's privacy policy states on DMs, "When you privately communicate with others through our Services, such as by sending and receiving Direct Messages, we will store and process your communications, and information related to them."
History
Twitter in trouble due to unofficial employee statements
Earlier, Project Veritas had released another video that claimed Twitter was ready to "turn over the private communications and deleted tweets of President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice."
And again, Twitter had refuted saying that it "only responds to valid legal requests, and does not share any user information with law enforcement without such a request."