This photo illustrates Elon Musk’s Twitter page. (Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto Getty Images
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According to a new explosive teaser video shared by Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, says the U.S. Government has full access to all information on social media, including direct messages between users.
While the video clip may make the viewer curious to watch the entire interview with Musk that will be airing reportedly on Fox News this Monday, Carlson could have done better by asking a few follow-ups questions.
“The degree to which various government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind. I was not aware of that,” Musk said in the new clip that’s available on Twitter.
“Would that include people’s DMs?” Carlson asked.
“Ah, yes,” Musk responded in the short clip.
Assuming Musk’s characterization is accurate, we don’t yet have answers to the most logical follow-up questions:
Is Musk talking about government access obtained through a court order—the same kind of thing that happens all the time when agencies like the FBI want to gain access to data held by tech companies?If the government’s access to private Twitter DMs is more nefarious than something that’s handed over through a court order, how did it work? Did the government just constantly monitor everyone’s messages? What surveillance mechanisms are used?Do you mean that Elon Musk and anyone else from Twitter have access to the DMs of users? What are the protections in place for users to be protected from snooping staff who might want to know what celebrities say in DMs, or what a former partner may be saying?Does Musk plan to offer encryption for direct messages, something he’s talked about before but never implemented?These aren’t idle questions, especially when Musk is involved. Two U.S. senators recently wrote to one of Musk’s other companies Tesla to demand information about how customer privacy may or may not be protected. As it turns out, Tesla employees were reportedly sharing all kinds of videos that weren’t intended to be seen outside of Tesla engineers under supposedly strict rules.
I guess the only way to find out whether any of these crucial questions get answered is to tune in to Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday night. You got me, Fox News. I want to know what else Musk has to say about how Twitter handled DM privacy and what it’s doing right now on the topic. But if these extremely simple questions aren’t answered it’s definitely going to be a waste of everyone’s time.
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