Elon Musk says Twitter will make DMs encrypted, and add video and audio calls

Twitter’s new proprietor, Elon Musk, has introduced his want to enhance the best way the social community’s direct messages work. In a gathering with employees right this moment, he defined precisely what that appears like.

In a slideshow titled “Twitter 2.0” at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Monday, Musk advised employees that the corporate will encrypt DMs and work on including encrypted video and audio calls between accounts, in keeping with a recording of the assembly obtained by the sting.

We wish to allow customers to speak with out worrying about their privateness. [or] With out worrying a couple of knowledge breach at Twitter inflicting all of their DMs to finish up on the net, or contemplating the opportunity of somebody on Twitter spying on their DMs,” Musk mentioned. From earlier than.”

Musk is correct about DMs being uncovered earlier than. in 2018, Twitter warned An unknown variety of direct messages between firms and their prospects have been accessed by outsiders for greater than a yr. And earlier this yr, it was The US government charged a former employee With improper entry to person knowledge on behalf of Saudi Arabia, although it’s unclear how direct messages had been or weren’t used.

Over time, Twitter has began after which paused the creation of encrypted DMs a number of instances. However Musk is now decided to place encryption as a prime precedence of the imaginative and prescient he calls Twitter 2.0. “It have to be the case that I am unable to take a look at anybody’s direct messages if somebody places a gun to my head,” he advised staff Monday.

Paradoxically, Moxie Marlinspike labored at Twitter and really wished to create cryptic DMs a number of years in the past, [but] I denied it after which he went and created a sign,” Musk mentioned. (For these curious, The Wall Street Journal He has a write up from 2015 Detailing Marlinspike’s time on Twitter.)

Musk continued, “We additionally wish to have the flexibility to have an audio and video chat through direct messages.” He acknowledged that Sign requires sharing a telephone quantity to begin a message thread and that due to its account system, Twitter can facilitate safe communication “so you do not have to present somebody your telephone quantity.” Sign He said since 2020 They’re additionally working to maneuver away from counting on telephone numbers, although they have not rolled out that functionality but.

I might wish to ask Twitter to touch upon what Musk mentioned about encrypting DMs however the firm does not have a communications division anymore.