Portions of Twitter’s source code have been disclosed, prompting the platform, owned by Elon Musk, to investigate the identity of the individual behind the leak, according to a recent legal document.
The court filing reveals that “various excerpts” of Twitter’s source code, which facilitates the platform’s operations, were shared on GitHub by a user identified as ‘FreeSpeechEnthusiast’. GitHub, a platform operated by Microsoft for code sharing, confirmed it removed the content on Friday following a request from Twitter.
In its pursuit of accountability, Twitter has filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking an order for GitHub to reveal “all identifying information” linked to the username ‘FreeSpeechEnthusiast’, as indicated in the filing dated March 24.
At this time, GitHub has not responded to inquiries from Reuters regarding whether it has provided the requested information or clarified how long the source code was publicly accessible.
Twitter has also not offered comments in response to similar requests for information.
The initial report of the leak was made by the New York Times.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
