Twitter DMs may soon be end-to-end encrypted
With Elon Musk at Twitter’s helm after the $44 billion takeover last month, many aspects of the popular social network are currently being modified. There are also some older Twitter components that may be brought back, including Vine. However, it seems another important feature could be coming back soon to Twitter – end-to-end encryption on direct messages.
A new tweet Twitter user Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) who has accurately predicted Twitter features ahead of their official announcement suggests the same. “Twitter is bringing back end-to-end encrypted DMs Seeing signs of the feature being worked on in Twitter for Android,” Wong said. Soon after Wong’s tweet, new Twitter CEO Elon Musk replied to the tweet with a ‘wink’ emoji, hinting at the feature actually being under development back at Twitter.
Twitter is bringing back end-to-end encrypted DMs
Seeing signs of the feature being worked on in Twitter for Android: https://t.co/YtOPHH3ntD pic.twitter.com/5VODYt3ChK
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 16, 2022
😉
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2022
End-to-end (E2E) encryption, allows messages between any two parties conversing on the platform to be completely encrypted and secure, available to only the sender and the receiver, with even the platform itself unable to intercept the messages. Encryption in Twitter’s DMs or Direct Messages would allow the platform to also double up as a secure, instant messaging solution comparable to popular apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.
While Twitter would offer the added benefit of also being the micro-blogging destination it has been for years, rivals like WhatsApp and Telegram are far ahead in terms of communication features, supporting encrypted group chats, voice and video calls and many other features.
Twitter had previously worked on bringing encryption to Twitter DMs back in 2018 as per a subsequent tweet Wong. However, the project was later abandoned. Musk himself has also been a vocal advocate of messaging app Signal, another popular communication app that comes with a number of security and privacy-oriented features including end-to-end encrypted messages. It remains to be seen if Twitter will also be picking up more one-on-one communication-oriented features in the future.
Use Signal
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
While Signal is not as feature-rich as many of its competitors, the app has its dedicated user base of privacy-conscious users, many of whom also migrated to the app during the WhatsApp Privacy Policy controversy in 2021.
