We (Google) have tried to find the balance with this since day one back in 2012 "If you see this warning it does not necessarily mean that your account has been hijacked. It just means that we believe you may be a target, of phishing or malware for example".

The aim is to give the users useful information that they may be targeted without totally compromising the detections and protections we have in place. It seems whatever a company says they are either going to be accused of being too vague or making statements that can't be proven.

It's become popular to pick on Twitter since they've previously made some shit decisions about how to handle free speech and user rights. My thought is that any company handling user data and accounts that state-level actors might want access to is at fault; the very least they can do for user privacy (and rights) is tell those users that someone is targeting them.

from the story:

> Twitter is not alone in starting to alert users targeted by state actors. Facebook did so beginning its notification service in October, followed by Twitter on Dec 14 and Yahoo eight days later.

and with regard to

> “However that [Twitter stays] quiet now does probably more harm,” Kubieziel said. “Some people suspect that Twitter might have received some gag order and isn’t allowed to say anything. However, even if it was only some bad algorithm which misjudged the situation, it would be better to tell the truth. I think it would help many of us to sleep better.”

it seems most likely to me that, yeah, they've been told not to tell who it is that wants the info.