Musk Twitter Leak Raises Concern About Outside Data Access

Elon Musk is giving outside writers unprecedented access to internal Twitter Inc. information, instructing the current head of trust and safety to provide screenshots of users’ accounts.

Screenshots showing internal systems restricted to a relatively small number of people in charge of moderating content were shared by journalist Bari Weiss on Thursday. The images carry a watermark — a translucent label — indicating they were taken from the employee view of Twitter’s trust and safety head, Ella Irwin. 

The watermarked screenshots, taken since December 7, 2022, raised concerns about whether Weiss had access to Irwin’s internal account, which would also mean access to sensitive information like a user’s private messages, according to people with knowledge of Twitter’s systems.

Irwin later clarified that she took the screenshots herself to prevent such a scenario. “For security purposes, the screenshots requested came from me so we could ensure no PII,” or personally identifiable information, “was exposed,” Irwin said on Twitter. “We did not give this access to reporters and no, reporters were not accessing user DMs,” or direct messages.

The watermarks were added to employee accounts after Twitter was hacked in 2020, the people said, a move intended to make it easier for Twitter to know where screenshots of internal systems were coming from.