The chief executive of the “anonymous” social media app Whisper has placed at least two employees on administrative leave, pending an internal investigation by the company.



Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed that Whisper, which promises users anonymity and claims to be “the safest place on the internet”, was tracking the location of its users, including some who had specifically asked not to be followed.

Michael Heyward made the announcement the day after it emerged that a powerful Senate committee chairman had written to the company, raising “serious questions” about its use of data.



Heyward did not specify how many members of staff on his editorial team had been suspended or say who they were, but other media outlets reported that those put on leave included Neetzan Zimmerman, the company’s editor-in-chief.

Heyward also said that the Guardian’s reporting was “highly misleading or just plain wrong”.

In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Guardian stories, Zimmerman took to Twitter to accuse the newspaper of printing “a pack of vicious lies”. He also suggested reporters who visited the company’s headquarters in September had fabricated quotes.

“As I have said, we strive to do right by all our users, and we continue to look into the unattributed quotes in the Guardian’s stories,” Heyward said. “We have placed members of the editorial team involved with the Guardian’s visit on leave, pending the results of our internal review.”



Heyward also strongly disputed some aspects of the Guardian’s reporting and said he would put the “correct record” to Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, who has asked Whisper to provide his staff with an in-person briefing and documents.

Heyward said: “Neetzan’s reaction to the Guardian’s allegations has taken away from the substance of the issue, which is that much of the Guardian’s reporting on this issue has been highly misleading or just plain wrong.”

“We do not track users passively or actively,” he added. “We promote and feature Whispers, and our editorial team looks at past Whispers from a user to determine their authenticity. Previous locations of posted Whispers may be taken into consideration when evaluating the veracity of a user’s claims for editorial purposes.”

Heyward’s full response, including his answers to 10 questions posed by the Guardian in an article on Thursday, has been published online.

The response includes links to Whisper correspondence and documents that Heyward said showed that changes to the company’s terms of service were “not related” to the Guardian’s reporting.

Whisper changed its terms of service on 13 October, four days after learning the Guardian planned to publish stories about its business practices.

Heyward said it was “absolutely” the case that all of the changes to the terms of service, which he said were finally reviewed by lawyers in August, were unrelated to the Guardian’s reporting.

“The changes were not related to their reporting, as we have stated multiple times,” he said.



He added: “We share the senator’s interest in protecting consumer privacy and will respond shortly.”