Well, it looks like Twitter is definitely going to know who FreeSpeechEnthusiast is really soon.
Earlier this week, a GitHub repository containing part of Twitter’s source code was taken down by the company after Twitter filed a DCMA request and petition with the District Court of Northern California. The repository, which was created by a user named “FreeSpeechEnthusiast,” was leaked on the platform last weekend.
In addition to the takedown request, Twitter had asked GitHub to reveal who FreeSpeechEnthusiast was. Well, the company is going to get exactly that. The District Court of Northern California has now subpoenaed GitHub to provide “all identifying information” for the person (or persons) associated with the account.
All identifying information, including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es), social media profile data, and IP address(es), for the user(s) associated with the following GitHub username: FreeSpeechEnthusiast. Please include all identifying information provided when this account was established, as well as all identifying information provided subsequently for billing or administrative purposes.
In addition, the subpoena demands that GitHub also provide identifying information “for the users who posted, uploaded, downloaded, or modified the data” in the repository that it had taken down earlier this week. GitHub has until April 3rd to meet the demands of the subpoena.
Funny enough, Twitter could turn around and make the same source code public tomorrow. Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced a little over a week ago that the company would open source its tweet recommendation code on March 31st.
The company is also planning to sunset legacy verification on the platform this weekend. Once sunset, legacy verified accounts will need to purchase Twitter Blue, the company’s paid verification service. Twitter Blue subscribers will soon also be the only ones recommended on the For You tab as, according to Musk, it is “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.”
