Governments have been able to read the contents of your private messages on Twitter before, but encryption will put an end to this, Elon Musk promised.
- Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk has confirmed plans to encrypt direct messages exchanged on the platform.
- The upcoming feature will be disabled by default. According to Musk, there will be a switch to enable encryption at any point in the conversation.
- The changes will come at the end of this month or sometime in May.
Twitter Direct Messages to Get Optional Encryption
In typical style, Musk made the announcement during a recent interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News, in which he touched on a number of topics such as the current state of AI (he founded a new AI company called X.AI), SpaceX, Twitter, and more.
“It will be great. Soon. Ultimate protection for users,” Musk tweeted. He also shared an excerpt from an interview that reveals the upcoming ability to turn encryption on and off for individual conversations.
The controversial Tesla executive was responding to a segment in which Carlson echoed Musk’s earlier remarks that various government agencies had access to Twitter user data prior to the acquisition.
You thought Twitter DMs were encrypted, right?
“The extent to which various government agencies actually had full access to everything that was happening on Twitter amazed me,” Musk said.
The spying on users included a Twitter direct messaging feature, which prompted an unexpected reaction from Carlson, who was unaware, like many Twitter users, that their DM exchange was stored in plain text on Twitter’s servers.
It will be great. Soon. Maximum protection for users.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023
Musk has promised that with the upcoming encryption feature, no one will be able to read the content of your Twitter messages, not even government agencies (hopefully). The SpaceX owner didn’t go into details, so we’ll have to wait and see how encryption for private Twitter messages is implemented.
Keep an eye on this space as we’ll keep you updated.