Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, is looking to introduce end-to-end encryption Direct Messaging protection, ensuring that a conversation between users is only ever seen by those sending the messages and not a surveilling third party. He made this announcement via a tweet yesterday.
Since Elon Musk took control of Twitter in October 2022, there has been a major revamping: several adjustments, a significant purge of the company employees, and the testing and subsequent release of new features.
Although some of these features seem like new ideas, many of them have already been hinted at to the public by experts long before Elon Musk’s takeover. This includes the most recent feature, an end-to-end encryption DM protection and emoji reaction, which Elon Musk is looking to roll out before the end of this month.
While making direct messages better and more secure seems like a great idea to many people, this idea already exists in Signal and WhatsApp, two very popular messaging platforms, and has long been a target for Elon.
With this new feature, no one can read your chats, including Twitter employees, except the recipients of your messages. It is unsure how this will work, whether it will be available for individual and group chats, or if it will be enabled by default or require an opt-in feature.
Read Also: How 4,000-character tweets for Twitter Blue may affect user experience
Encrypted DMs: An old Twitter Project
In 2016, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, agreed with a user who requested an end-to-end encryption function on the social media platform. At the time, Jack Dorsey deemed it “reasonable” and assured the user that the team would explore the concept.
Fast forward to 2018, TechCrunch reported that just like other new features, an E2E encryption feature was spotted inside the Twitter APK by Jane Manchun Wong, an App researcher. Although Twitter did not publicly announce they were working on the feature then, it seemed the trial stopped.
After Elon Musk’s takeover, on November 9th, 2022, Jane Manchun Wong asked Elon Musk to revive the E2E encryption feature. Seven days later, the app researcher announced that the Twitter team is currently working on reviving the feature under the new management.
By the end of that month, Elon Musk released a list of updates on Twitter 2.0, including Encrypted DMs. On February 10th, Twitter designer Andrea Conway showed a concept very similar to WhatsApp and Signal that indicated that DMs would have a banner at the top of a conversation to indicate that it is protected through end-to-end encryption.
Is Elon Musk just releasing old Twitter Projects?
Twitter 2.0 is an updated version of the microblogging site created by Elon Musk that will contain new features, not specifically new ideas, that will make the user experience more seamless.
There are many features that Elon Musk has rolled out since he acquired Twitter, but the Twitter team was already considering quite a number of them even before his management.
The edit feature, which is currently available for Twitter Blue subscribers, is one feature that has been in the works since Jack Dorsey’s tenure. There has been news about an edit button for Twitter since 2013, 2016, and 2018. In 2019, Twitter and its CEO dropped similar hints that excited users about the feature. But it never debuted until after Elon Musk’s takeover.
Read Also: Twitter May Soon Allow Users Edit their Posts, But how Big of a Deal is the Feature?
Also, Twitter’s previous management had the idea of introducing a long text format called Twitter Notes, allowing users to create articles using rich formatting and uploaded media. In June 2022, the microblogging site planned to merge its newsletter subscription into TwitterWrite, a brand to create long-form writing efforts.
After the takeover, Elon Musk announced plans for the long text attachments. In December 2022, a Twitter designer hinted that Twitter planned to increase the character limit for tweets, supporting the direct publishing of long-form content on its platform.
These are just a few projects released in Elon Musk’s regime that have long been in the works, even before the acquisition.
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