“We Are Not Reading Your Direct Messages. Period”: Twitter

American conservative political activist, James O'Keefe on Monday released an undercover footage of employees of Twitter alleging that the social media has many employees that read everything people post online — including direct messages. But, Twitter is denying the claims that the employees monitor private user data saying the allegations are factually not correct at all and is misleadingly framed by O'Keefe's media organization Project Veritas.

“We do not review any kind DMs. Only a few employees of Twitter have access to such sensitive information and that too for only legitimate work purposes and the company enforces strict access protocols for those employees,” a Twitter representative said.

After the video went viral, Twitter issued a statement saying it only responds to valid legal requests, and never shares any kind of user information.

“We feel that the footage obtained is selectively edited to fit a pre-determined narrative. We are committed to enforcing our rules and regulations without being bias and empowering every voice on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules,” the social media giant, Twitter added.

This is not the first time that Twitter has come face to face with scrutiny for how it manages employee access to user data. Last year in November, Twitter faced a lot of criticism after a contract employee temporarily took down President Donald Trump's Twitter account. The incident has raised hundreds of questions on Twitter whether its employees could access users’ data and take action to suspend or ban users at their will. And since that nasty November incident, Twitter has apparently taken steps to better secure the employee permissions, according to an individual familiar with the decision making process.