Among a bunch of product changes to make Twitter a more compelling platform, Elon has mentioned Musk multiple time his desire to make direct messaging better and safer. So much so that he wants DMs to “superset” Signal – the encrypted messaging app.
Over the weekend, Musk said the end-to-end encrypted DM feature will roll out this month. In addition, users are also given the option to reply to individual messages and use each reaction emoji. “With the goal of rolling out later this month the ability to reply to individual DMs, use any comment emoji and encoding,” Musk wrote. Currently, users can only choose from seven emojis as reactions.
End-to-end encryption protection means no one, including Twitter, can read your chats (except the recipients of your messages). Several other apps and messaging protocols such as WhatsApp, Signal, and iMessage already use this type of encryption. Currently, Twitter employees may be able to read the content of direct messages on the platform. It’s not clear at this point if the encryption will be available for both individual and group chats. Likewise, it’s unclear whether end-to-end encryption is enabled by default or is an opt-in feature.
Encrypted DMs aren’t exactly a new project. Twitter started working on it in 2018, but later dropped its efforts. Last year, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovers new code suggesting the social network has resumed work on the position under the new management.
In addition, Twitter designer Andrea Conway also showed a draft in February, which indicated that DMs will have a banner at the top of a conversation indicating that it is protected by end-to-end encryption.
Other new features are just part of Twitter trying to achieve feature parity with chat apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. The Meta app expanded its emoji reaction feature last year, and Telegram pushed custom reactions behind a paywall.