Possible crash sites for Twitter identified

Gilead

Twitter

Fig. 1. “Elon Musk shared a video of his entrance on his Twitter account.” Photograph attributed to Elon Musk, October 26, 2022, via the New York Post,^[1] fair use.

We might be seeing a specific impact site for Twitter’s full-throttle nosedive. Under Elon Musk, Twitter appears to be running afoul of both U.S. Federal Trade Commission^[2] and European Union privacy regulations.^[3] Fines could run into the billions of dollars.^[4]

Twitter was first put under a consent order in 2011, and it agreed to a new order earlier this year. If the FTC finds Twitter is not complying with that order, it could fine the company hundreds of millions of dollars, potentially damaging the company’s already precarious financial state.^[5]

If [Twitter] fails to [keep regulators informed], it’ll be compliance cost and risk spiraling out of control — with the potential for a total car crash scenario smashing the business (per the internal lawyer’s note to Twitter employees obtained by the Verge last week, an FTC penalty for Twitter breaching the consent order could run into the billions of dollars) and smashing any remaining staff who are exposed to personal liability (such as those agreeing to work in ways that run counter to the terms of the FTC consent decree). . . .

On the [General Data Protection Regulation] side, if Twitter gets exposed to decentralized oversight across the EU by falling out of the [one-stop shop in Ireland], it could lead to major headaches as it could be hit with multiple GDPR fines by watchdogs all over the region — each of up to 4% of its annual turnover. So a pipeline of such fines could quickly start to add up for Twitter (which Musk has already claimed could face bankruptcy).^[6]

All this, of course, is in addition to a national security investigation that could already be happening and that we won’t immediately know about if it does.^[7]

Natasha Lomas, “Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop?” TechCrunch, November 14, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/is-elon-musks-twitter-about-to-fall-out-of-the-gdprs-one-stop-shop/

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1. ^[1]Thomas Barrabi, “Elon Musk barges into Twitter HQ as deal nears: ‘Let that sink in,’” New York Post, October 26, 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/10/26/elon-musk-barges-into-twitter-headquarters-as-deal-nears/↩
2. ^[2]Joseph Menn et al., “Twitter’s content moderation head quits as departures alarm the FTC,” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/↩
3. ^[3]Natasha Lomas, “Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop?” TechCrunch, November 14, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/is-elon-musks-twitter-about-to-fall-out-of-the-gdprs-one-stop-shop/↩
4. ^[4]Natasha Lomas, “Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop?” TechCrunch, November 14, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/is-elon-musks-twitter-about-to-fall-out-of-the-gdprs-one-stop-shop/; Joseph Menn et al., “Twitter’s content moderation head quits as departures alarm the FTC,” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/↩
5. ^[5]Joseph Menn et al., “Twitter’s content moderation head quits as departures alarm the FTC,” Washington Post, November 10, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/↩
6. ^[6]Natasha Lomas, “Is Elon Musk’s Twitter about to fall out of the GDPR’s one-stop shop?” TechCrunch, November 14, 2022, https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/14/is-elon-musks-twitter-about-to-fall-out-of-the-gdprs-one-stop-shop/↩
7. ^[7]Sanjay Patnaik, Robert E. Litan, and James Kunhardt, “The national security grounds for investigating Musk’s Twitter acquisition,” Brookings, November 4, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-biden-would-be-justified-in-blocking-or-modifying-musks-twitter-acquisition-on-national-security-grounds/↩