Elon Musk has confirmed that microblogging platform Twitter has finally encrypted direct messages. As a result, Direct His messaging on Twitter is now safer than ever, giving users even more privacy on the platform. However, Twitter officials themselves say they should not be trusted yet.
End-to-end encryption is a protocol widely used to ensure user privacy on Instant His messaging services and social media platforms. Once the message is encrypted, only the recipient can read it, not even the platform’s moderators can access it. Considering Elon Musk’s tweet, it looks like the company is still working on this feature, and it’s possible there are still a few things to fix in the next few days.
How does end-to-end encryption work?
When a user sends a message, the platform (in this case her Twitter) encrypts the message. This means that the text content is encrypted and only recipients with a unique digital key can access the original content. This prevents anyone in the system from reading the actual message if it is indeed end-to-end encrypted, preventing even Elon Musk from accessing her Twitter DMs for others.
Platforms like Instagram give users the option to enable or disable end-to-end encrypted messages. It’s unclear at this time if Twitter has a similar option. However, end-to-end encryption seems to be enabled by default for now. We will post updates on this as they become available.
