In the latest example of tension between technology companies and the U.S. government, Twitter has barred American intelligence agencies from accessing an information discovery company that analyzes in real time tweets to inform users of crucial worldwide news events,
The Wall Street Journal reports.
Five percent of the company, Dataminr, is owned by Twitter. It is the only firm allowed by the online social networking service to both access all its public tweets and sell them. Although this policy has not been made public, the Wall Street Journal said it was confirmed by an intelligence source and others in the know.
Twitter told
The Verge that it has "never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes, [and] that it was a longstanding Twitter policy, not a new development."
Twitter, like other similar services, has become wary of harming its trust with users by being seen as having too close a relationship with federal agencies. Intelligence officials have acknowledged the importance of such services in gathering vital information quickly and potentially preventing terrorist attacks or capturing those involved.
This difficult balance was illustrated by the 2016 court case in which the FBI wanted to force Apple, over the company's objection, to create a new software that would allow the federal agency to unlock an iPhone that one of the terrorists used in the December 2015 attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 22 people. The case was dropped when the FBI managed to find another company to unlock the phone.
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