Parts of the Twitter source code have been published on the Internet

Portions of Twitter's software code have been exposed on the internet as a result of an unusually serious data breach. The short message service is now demanding information about who or those allegedly responsible behind the publication, as evidenced by court documents from the weekend. Twitter also requested data from the programming platform Github on all users who might have seen or downloaded the computer code there.

The excerpts of the Twitter source code that runs the company online have been published on Github by the alleged responsible party with the username "FreeSpeechEnthusiast". The company said it removed the code on Friday at Twitter's request.

Twitter also launched an internal investigation, as the New York Times reported on Monday night, citing unnamed sources. One concern is that the program code may contain undiscovered vulnerabilities that attackers could find and exploit to access data or sabotage the platform.

Twitter managers only recently found out about the leak, the New York Times said. That would mean that the software code could have been online at Github for a good two months. Because the account that published the data according to Twitter had only uploaded something there once, according to data from the platform – on January 3rd.

The extent of the leak initially remained unclear. Such basic program codes are among the well-kept secrets of an online platform. Twitter asserted copyrights to get the data removed from the web. At the same time, Twitter owner Elon Musk wants to make the algorithm public at the end of March, which selects tweets for individual users if they are sorted by the software and not displayed in chronological order.

Twitter is suspected of being behind the leak by someone who worked on Twitter until last year, wrote the New York Times.

For billionaire Elon Musk, the data leak means further challenges. He bought Twitter in October for $44 billion (€40.8 billion) and has since laid off half of the approximately 7,000 employees. According to the tech entrepreneur, Twitter is now valued at $20 billion. That's less than half the purchase price Musk paid six months ago.

In an internal e-mail quoted by the US media, the entrepreneur describes the company's loss in value and explains that the communication platform had such great financial difficulties that it was temporarily on the verge of bankruptcy. The email was about a new share-based compensation program for employees. Musk expressed the expectation that the company could return to profitability in the second quarter as advertisers returned. He sees a "clear but difficult path" ahead of Twitter that could increase the company's value to $250 billion. Musk did not say when this could happen.

Since the takeover in October, Twitter has repeatedly suffered from technical glitches. Because the moderation of content has also been reduced, numerous companies are no longer advertising, which has resulted in a significant loss of revenue for the platform.

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