Twitter to pay $150M penalty over privacy of users’ data

By MARCY GORDON
AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twitter will pay a $150 million penalty and put in new safeguards to settle federal regulators’ allegations that the social platform failed to protect the privacy of users’ data over a six-year span. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission announced the settlement Wednesday with Twitter. The regulators allege that Twitter violated a 2011 FTC order by deceiving users about how well the company maintained and protected the privacy and security of their nonpublic contact information. The government alleged that the violations occurred from May 2013 to September 2019.