Someone leaked Twitter’s source code and no one knows who did it

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Twitter is in trouble again, folks. Parts of Twitter’s proprietary source code leaked online, prompting the social media giant to scramble to contain the fallout.

According to a legal filing, per the New York Times, the leaker posted on GitHub, a developer collaboration platform, letting it sit there in the open, publicly available for several months. Yikes.

Twitter took swift action to remove the code, sending a copyright infringement notice to GitHub, which complied and took the code down on the same day. But the damage is done.

Twitter is a mess

Hackers could’ve potentially used the code to identify vulnerabilities in the platform, which could put users’ data at risk or even take the whole damn thing down.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Twitter’s already struggling to reduce technical issues and improve its business fortunes under the ownership of Elon Musk.

So who’s behind the leak? Honestly, the list is long. At this point, it’s unclear, and Twitter is getting the courts involved in hopes it gets Github to reveal the actors behind it.

But if I were a betting man, the code was likely uploaded by one of the many engineers Musk laid off in a cost-cutting move after purchasing the company.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. A former Twitter security chief alleged in a whistleblower complaint that many employees have access to the social media platform’s code and user data.

Probably doesn’t take a law degree to figure this out, but as NYT tech reporter Ryan Mac notes in a tweet, “The user who Twitter says posted the source code had the username “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” an apparent allusion to Elon Musk.”

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Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com or find him on Mastodon or Post.