Twitter source code leaked online, court filings show

“Say what you want about me, but I acquired the world’s largest non-profit for $44B lol”

In February, Elon Musk announced Twitter was planning to open-source its algorithm following. Musk made the statement following a question from one of his fans. “Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm is made open source next week, but it will improve rapidly!” Musk tweeted. However, what Musk did not disclose was that the company’s source code was leaked online a few months earlier.

According to multiple media reports, pieces of software code used to run Twitter were leaked online, according to court filings.

According to legal documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Twitter recently issued a subpoena to GitHub, a software collaboration platform.

The subpoena was in response to a user, identified as “FreeSpeechEnthusiast,” who shared unauthorized portions of Twitter’s source code on the platform. The purpose of the subpoena is to identify the individual responsible for the code sharing, as stated by Twitter’s legal team.

In a statement to CNBC, GitHub confirmed it complied with Twitter’s request and removed the code that same day. The platform’s representative stated that they disclose all Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns publicly, which happens when content is taken down from a site at the behest of a copyright owner, to maintain transparency.

Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Twitter did not release its source code in February as Musk previously promised. On March 17, Musk now said Twitter will open source the code used to recommend tweets on March 31. He also added that he expects people will find “silly” issues and that providing code transparency will be “incredibly embarrassing” at first.

“Our “algorithm” is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things , but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found! We’re developing a simplified approach to serve more compelling tweets, but it’s still a work in progress. That’ll also be open source. Providing code transparency will be incredibly embarrassing at first, but it should lead to rapid improvement in recommendation quality. Most importantly, we hope to earn your trust,” Musk tweeted.

Our “algorithm” is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things , but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found!

We’re developing a simplified approach to serve more compelling tweets, but it’s still a work in progress. That’ll also…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2023

Meanwhile, according to the DMCA request shared by GitHub, the company disclosed that it removed “proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools.” It is unclear if the source code used to recommend tweets is part of the leak.