Most people may live out their digital lives with the assumption they can delete their posts, messages and personal data from services whenever they choose. But a tech hearing in the U.S. this week threw that core assumption into question.
Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, the former security chief at Twitter, told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the social network does not reliably delete the data of users who cancel their accounts, expanding on bombshell allegations he made in a whistleblower disclosure first reported by CNN and The Washington Post last month.
In his testimony and whistleblower disclosure, Zatko alleged Twitter does not reliably delete users' data, in some cases because it has lost track of the information. Twitter has broadly defended itself against Zatko's allegations, saying his disclosure paints a "false narrative" of the company. In response to questions from CNN, Twitter has previously said it has workflows in place to "begin a deletion process" but has not said whether it typically completes that process.
While Zatko's allegations are stunning, it also served as just another reminder to Sandra Matz of "how oftentimes mindless we are" in sharing our data online.
"It sounds very simple, but whatever you put out there, don't ever expect it to become private again," said Matz, a social media researcher and professor at Columbia Business School. "Retracting something from the internet, hitting the reset button — is almost impossible."
The stakes for feeling in control of our data, and confident in our ability to delete it, have arguably never been higher. In the wake of th ..
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