Twitter Microsoft Data Controversy: A lawyer for Twitter owner Elon Musk has accused Microsoft of misusing the data of the microblogging website (Twitter). He has also written a letter to the information technology giant Microsoft, demanding an audit in the matter. The letter primarily focuses on Twitter’s allegations of alleged irregularities by Microsoft in obtaining information from its database of tweets. But, going forward, there is a possibility of increasing the dispute between the two companies regarding the misuse of data.
Musk had earlier in a tweet accused Microsoft and its partner Open-AI of ‘illegally’ using Twitter’s data to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based advanced technology like Chat-GPT. In this tweet made in April, Musk had said, ‘Time for trial.’ The letter, signed by Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, also centers around the same allegation. It states that Microsoft’s agreement with Twitter prohibits the company from ‘inappropriate or excessive use’ of the microblogging website’s data.
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Spiro wrote that despite these restrictions, Microsoft had received more than 26 billion tweets from Twitter in the year 2022 alone. He has not given any reference to confirm the figure. The letter also alleges that Microsoft was supposed to inform Twitter about the potential use of its data, but the company failed to do so for six of its eight applications that collected information from Twitter’s database.
The letter also states that at least one of Microsoft’s applications supplied Twitter’s data to multiple virtual mediums, which is in violation of the agreement between the two parties. The point of the site is believed to be towards ‘government institutions or agencies’. Meanwhile, Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw issued a statement saying that the company will review the issues raised in the letter and then make an “appropriate response” to the allegations. Shaw said that ‘we hope to maintain our long partnership with Twitter’. In the statement, he did not react to the allegations made in the letter.
