Twitter DMs are getting encryption, says Elon Musk

Twitter is working on encrypting direct messages (DMs) and adding encrypted video and voice calling between accounts.

That’s according to the “Twitter 2.0” presentation that new owner Elon Musk gave on Monday. The Verge obtained a meeting recording in which Musk outlined his plans.

The meeting included the below passage about making DMs more private, reproduced from The Verge‘s reporting.

“We want to enable users to be able to communicate without being concerned about their privacy, [or] without being concerned about a data breach at Twitter causing all of their DMs to hit the web, or think that maybe someone at Twitter could be spying on their DMs… …that’s obviously not going to be cool and it has happened a few times before,” notes Twitter owner, Elon Musk

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One of the times Musk was referencing was a bug in the API businesses uses. This sent private messages to some developers instead of staying between the sender and the company it was intended for.

Another improper use of Twitter data came to light in August of 2022 when a former Twitter Inc. employee was convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia. It’s unclear if DMs were accessed in this case, but the potential was there.

Now Musk wants all DMs encrypted, so even he “can’t look at anyone’s DMs if somebody has put a gun to my head.” He went on to say that Twitter will work on bringing voice and video chat via DMs, which will also be encrypted.

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Twitter no longer has a communications department to respond to our queries. We’ll likely hear more about the planned encryption on Twitter, from Musk, at the same time as everyone else.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.