Twitter is a mess.
The company has kicked out thousands of engineers (and thousands of contractors responsible for fighting misinformation and harmful content).
Meanwhile, Twitter’s CISO and Head of Trust & Safety both resigned, and both its Chief Privacy Officer and Compliance Officer abruptly resigned along with other top executives within the company.
And what are Twitter’s new owners doing?
Elon Musk is scare advertisers With his strange behavior, the decisions he made Impersonate a big brand Posting tweets that have caused immense damage to a business’ reputation and erased billions of dollars from its market capitalization.
A few weeks ago we talked about some issues on Twitter. “Smashing Security” PodcastLittle did we know that things were going from bad to worse.
The latest blunder on Twitter?Minimized initiative by Musk Get rid of “blowware” from Twitter It looks like some users were temporarily locked out of the site because their SMS-based two-factor authentication was accidentally disabled.
It seems that someone was ordered to remove some code from Twitter, but they simply didn’t understand the intricacies of Twitter’s system.
The only people most likely to understand these links and dependencies between Twitter’s systems and warn of possible consequences are those Twitter has already fired. Twitter’s new bosses may not listen to them, even if they’re still employed by the company.
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So if you’re a Twitter user, what does this mean?
Most of what I do on Twitter is public, but over the nearly 15 years I’ve been a user of the site, I’ve had many private direct message (DM) conversations.
I can’t remember everything I said or what people said to me in those conversations.
If Twitter inadvertently broke 2FA mechanics for some users a few days ago, what mistake could they make next? Twitter security expert fired, resigned , or (maybe) wondering where to go next, how safe is my data on Twitter?
It may be highly unlikely that Twitter will have major security issues or be hacked without the expertise to defend against it, but it is possible. And it seems more likely today than before Elon Musk bought the company.
There is nothing I can do to make chaotic Twitter safer. However, you can reduce potential risks by removing the DM.
I don’t want all the old DM conversations. can be erased.they should do it erased.
It’s a painstaking process (Twitter doesn’t offer an automated way to do it), but I’d rather delete it one by one than find it in the hands of hackers and disgruntled Twitter employees. Better. will be illegal.
PS. Do you know what’s really gnawing? Delete Twitter DMs doesn’t really stop Twitter from keep a copy of your private messages unknown to youeven if you completely closed your account in one day.
Some final thoughts:
- Please encourage your Twitter buddies to delete the DM as well. That way, “both sides” of the conversation are wiped out.
- Even if Twitter doesn’t delete your messages in the background, you still want hackers to not have easy access to your messages if *your* account is compromised.
- If Twitter keeps your private messages even after you request that they be deleted, is it a potential (and costly) GDPR violation?
- If you want a permanent record of your DMs (and other Twitter activity), Download the Twitter Archive.
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