
The controls were so porous that at one point in 2017 and 2018 some contractors made a kind of game out of creating bogus help-desk inquiries that allowed them to peek into celebrity accounts, including Beyonce’s, to track the stars’ personal data including their approximate locations gleaned from their devices’ IP addresses, two of the former employees said. Concerns about Twitter’s ability to protect user data deepened this month after hackers hijacked the accounts of some of its most famous users, including political leaders, business titans and celebrities, as part of an apparent cryptocurrency scam. The pressure on Twitter to protect its users isn’t limited to the personal data it collects on them — which is minimal compared to some other social media sites — but extends to the influence its users wield, especially world leaders or the political dissidents who oppose them.