Twitter's Chief Information Security Officer to Leave Company

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Twitter's Chief Information Security Officer Michael Coates has confirmed that he is about to leave the social network to start his own company, an announcement which comes amid reports that digital companies are increasingly worried over privacy and content policies.

"Twitter has been an amazing ride, but as I mentioned internally a few weeks back, my time is coming to an end. I’m confident to leave the program with an amazing security team," Coates said on Twitter on Wednesday.

Coates' departure comes amid a growing scandal involving fellow social network Facebook and the exploitation of users' data by third parties.

The Twitter information security chief, who has been with the company for three years, is planning to launch a security start-up, the details of which he promised to reveal soon.

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On Monday, the director of the Information Security Engineering at Google, Michal Zalewski, said he would be leaving the company after spending 11 years there.

The day before, The New York Times reported that Facebook's Chief Information Security Officer Alex Stamos would also be departing amid internal disagreements over the social network's handling and disclosure of activities related to election campaigns. However, Stamos refuted the reports in a Tweet on Monday, saying that he was staying put, although he would spend more time on election security now.

All three digital giants have been facing increasing pressure over their content policy, including the spread of fake news, especially during the election.