Twitter users can soon feel more secure on its platform.
Company CEO Elon Musk recently announced that Twitter is releasing the feature of encrypted direct messages (DMs) that prevents anyone, even Twitter employees, from reading your messages to others.
Musk also teased a few new features coming to the app in the future.
Twitter Encrypted DMs Details
We’re excited to launch two new features in Direct Messages today!
— Support (@Support) May 10, 2023
📢 Introducing DM Replies! You can now reply to any message you receive in DMs, making conversations smoother and more intuitive.
🥳 We’ve also added a new Emoji Picker to DMs, allowing you to react to messages…
Musk mentioned on his Twitter account that the platform's new encrypted DMs feature would grow in sophistication rapidly once it's released to the point that "[he] couldn't see [users'] DMs even if there was a gun to [his] head."
Twitter's announcement on its Twitter Support page backs up Musk's statement, saying that the new encrypted DMs would make having conversations on Twitter smoother and more intuitive.
This move is a god-send to Twitter users; a bug previously allowed third-party developers to get access to some users' DMs in 2018 - an accident that undermined Tiwtter's cybersecurity up until now, per 9to5Mac.
Although Twitter's new encrypted DMs are now available to use on its iOS and Android apps, both Musk nor Twitter didn't mention anything about its web version having the same feature. Whether this was a mistake or a sign of a delay is still unknown. After all, Twitter's web version is vastly different from its iOS and Android mobile apps.
Additionally, users could now use a new Emoji Picker whenever they're typing up messages on their DMs, allowing them to react to messages with a wider range of emojis than ever before.
With latest version of app, you can DM reply to any message in the thread (not just most recent) and use any emoji reaction.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023
Release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow. This will grow in sophistication rapidly. The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if…
Aside from the encrypted DMs and new Emoji Picker, Musk also mentioned that voice and video chat would be coming to the platform sometime in the future - he didn't specify a period when Twitter could launch it. However, he did mention that Twitter users could soon talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them their phone numbers to do so.
Regardless, the lack of detail in Musk's announcement of voice and video chats has some scratching their heads. Others are asking how it would work -if it's for DMs or as a way for users to communicate with their followers like in a Discord server.
Twitter's Other Features
Twitter's encrypted DMs are the latest in the many features Elon Musk and his Twitter 2.0 team released for the platform in recent times. Both were previously focused on removing legacy checkmarks from those who retained them since he took over in late 2022.
The last time Twitter added a new feature to its platform was on Apr. 6, with the platform showing 50% fewer ads to Twitter Blue subscribers compared to those that remain unsubscribed, per Tech Crunch. However, this "half ad" feature doesn't apply to those shown on the profile or in replies, promoted accounts and trends, and promoted events on the Explore page.
Unfortunately, the publication found it difficult to prove if a Twitter Blue subscriber could actually see fewer ads apart from anecdoctal experiences on the platform.
