Twitter: Parts of social network’s source code leaked online

Some parts of Twitter’s source code - the fundamental computer code on which the social network runs - were leaked online, the social media company said in a legal filing on Monday that was first reported by The New York Times.

According to the legal document, filed with the US District Court of the Northern District of California, Twitter had asked GitHub, an internet hosting service for software development, to take down the code where it was posted.

The platform complied and said the content had been disabled, according to the filing.

Twitter also asked the court to identify the alleged infringer or infringers who posted Twitter’s source code on systems operated by GitHub without Twitter’s authorisation.

Twitter, based in San Francisco, noted in the filing that the postings infringe copyrights held by Twitter.

Twitter went to court to get its leaked source code taken down. Photo / AP

The leak creates more challenges for billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter last October for US$44 billion (then $75b, now $71b) and took the company private. Since then, it has been engulfed in chaos, with massive layoffs and advertisers fleeing.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is probing Musk’s mass layoffs at Twitter and trying to obtain his internal communications as part of ongoing oversight into the social media company’s privacy and cybersecurity practices, according to documents described in a congressional report.