Twitter, one of the most popular social media platforms, has announced encrypted direct messages (DMs) to improve privacy. With the new DM Replies, users can reply to a specific message in a private conversation. This feature will allow users to send messages to each other privately on Twitter. This means Twitter will be even better and safer for users. Before continuing with this article, it’s worth mentioning that Encrypted DMs are separate from unencrypted DMs.
In addition, Twitter DMs have added new emoji pickers. For this, users can choose any emoji from the menu that pops up when they tap and hold a message. Another change is that users can now reply to a specific message in a DM, which makes it easier to follow the chat and avoid confusion. Currently, Encrypted DMs are limited to a handful of users. Encrypted DMs are not supported on Group Chat and are incompatible with TweetDeck or Twitter Lite.
Encrypted DMs are only for verified users and affiliates of verified organizations on Twitter.
To use this, update your Twitter app to the latest version. This feature is available across the platform. However, this feature is currently limited to verified users, verified organizations, and affiliates of verified organizations. Currently, Encrypted DMs are limited to text, links, and reactions, which are also encrypted. While other attachments are not supported yet. While messages are encrypted, metadata (recipients, creation time, etc.) are not. Neither is any linked content (only links themselves, not any content they refer to, is encrypted).
Verified users can pay $8/month for Twitter Blue to get a checkmark. Organizations can pay $1,000/month to get verified and $50/month for each affiliate. Twitter recently restored the blue checkmark for many accounts with over a million followers. Encrypted DMs are an additional perk for Twitter Blue subscribers, verified organizations, and their affiliates.
To use Encrypted DMs while sending the message, tap on the compose button and toggle to enable encryption. People can read the message just like a normal message, but they have to turn on the switch in the upper-right corner to enable Encrypted DMs. This also adds to a limit of 10 devices per user, and Twitter doesn’t offer any protection against man-in-the-middle attacks. They are working to improve the security of their encrypted DMs feature.
In addition, Twitter will also receive video and voice chat functionality in the future. The company is moving toward more private communication features, such as encrypted DMs, which is a major privacy improvement and functionality to make Twitter better with communications so that Twitter would be a more versatile platform for conversations.
These features will encourage users to use the platform and allow users to communicate with each other without having to give out a phone number or switch to another platform. We also want to mention that Facebook is declining in terms of overall activity. Facebook is trying to bring back Messenger to Facebook more like Twitter.
Besides this, Elon Musk also wants to make Twitter a super app, which means users can do various things with the app, including messaging, payment, and gaming. If you’ve never heard of a super app, these apps are quite popular in Asia. One of the most popular super apps is WeChat, which has over 1 billion users in China, allowing users to do everything from messaging to paying for groceries. However, it still needs to be determined how Twitter will evolve and become a successful super app in the United States.
