Twitter asks federal choose to terminate $150M FTC settlement over consumer privateness

Twitter needs a federal court docket to terminate a $150 million settlement with the Federal Commerce Fee that was struck final yr after Lina Khan’s company accused the tech large of violating consumer privateness.

Khan appeared earlier than Congress on Thursday when she was grilled concerning the FTC’s probe of Twitter.

Twitter has claimed that it had been subjected to a “burdensome and vexatious enforcement investigation” by the FTC, which underneath Khan has gained a status for zealous pursuit of antitrust circumstances.

Republican lawmakers accused Khan of pursuing an anti-business agenda towards Elon Musk’s social media website.

In line with court docket filings submitted by attorneys for Twitter, a third-party auditor from the accounting agency Ernst & Younger testified that he felt “as if the FTC was attempting to affect the end result of the engagement earlier than it had began.”

“The Court docket mustn’t allow the FTC to proceed invoking judicial energy to prosecute an investigation so contaminated by bias that it has misplaced any believable connection to lawful goal,” Twitter wrote in its submitting with San Francisco federal court docket.

Twitter accused the FTC in court docket paperwork of demanding that the corporate produce greater than 22,000 paperwork.

The corporate additionally needs the court docket to grant Twitter a keep of deposition of Musk.

Musk, Twitter argues, wasn’t a celebration to the unique consent decree and thus shouldn’t be required to present a deposition.

Twitter informed the court docket that it tried on a number of events to rearrange a gathering between Musk and Khan.

Khan is reported to have replied that she would contemplate a gathering solely after Twitter complied with FTC requests.

GOP members have accused Khan and Democrats of focusing on Musk over his political beliefs, notably within the wake of the tech mogul’s free-wheeling content material moderation insurance policies following his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

Khan’s company has taken goal at Twitter over alleged violations of a decade-old consent decree wherein the tech agency pledged to safeguard consumer information.

Twitter reached a consent decree with the FTC in 2011, which was expanded in 2022, that required the social media platform to conduct common safety audits and to maintain the company knowledgeable about the way it handles delicate information.

“Our focus is on defending folks’s privateness and safety,” Khan mentioned at Thursday’s listening to.

“Twitter has delicate information on 150 million Individuals, together with personal messages…we’re doing every little thing to ensure Twitter is complying with the order.”

The FTC declined to remark.