Amongst a ton of product adjustments to make Twitter a extra engaging platform, Elon Musk has talked about a number of instances his want to make direct messages higher and safer. A lot in order that he desires DMs to “superset Sign” — the encrypted messaging app.
Over the weekend, Musk stated that the end-to-end encrypted DM function will roll out this month. Together with that, customers can even get the power to answer to particular person messages and use any response emoji. “Aiming to roll out means to answer to particular person DMs, use any response emoji & encryption later this month,” Musk wrote. Presently, customers can solely select amongst seven emojis as reactions.
Aiming to roll out means to answer to particular person DMs, use any response emoji & encryption later this month
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2023
Finish-to-end encryption safety implies that nobody, together with Twitter, will be capable of learn your chats (besides the recipients of your messages). A number of different apps and messaging protocols like WhatsApp, Sign and iMessage already use this type of encryption. Presently, Twitter workers can probably learn the content material of direct messages on the platform. It’s not clear in the intervening time if the encryption can be accessible for each particular person and group chats. Equally, it’s unclear whether or not end-to-end encryption can be enabled by default or can be an opt-in function.
Encrypted DMs aren’t precisely a brand new challenge. Twitter began engaged on them again in 2018 however deserted its efforts later. Final 12 months, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong found new code suggesting that the social community has resumed its work on the function underneath the brand new administration.
What’s extra, Twitter designer Andrea Conway additionally confirmed off an idea in February, which indicated that DMs can have a banner on the high of a dialog to point that it’s protected by means of end-to-end encryption.
Different new capabilities are simply a part of Twitter attempting to realize function parity with chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. The Meta-owned app expanded its emoji response function final 12 months and Telegram pushed customized reactions behind a paywall.
