in one new support documentTwitter has detailed what to expect from the first release of the platform’s encrypted direct messages. Perhaps most notably, you have to pay Twitter to send and receive encrypted messages. Platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, and iMessage already offer encrypted messaging for free, so paying for the feature on Twitter might be difficult.
According to the document, encrypted DMs are only available if you’re a verified user (someone who pays for Twitter Blue), a verified organization (an organization that pays $1,000 a month) or an affiliate of a verified organization (which costs $50 per month per person). Both the sender and recipient must have the latest version of the Twitter app (mobile and web). And an encrypted DM recipient must follow the sender, have sent a message to the sender in the past, or accept a DM request from the sender at some point.
If you’re someone who can send encrypted messages to someone who can receive them, you’ll see a lock when composing a message. In an encrypted conversation, you’ll also see a small lock icon next to the avatar of the person you’re chatting with. Encrypted DMs will be separate from unencrypted ones.
Encrypted DMs currently have some limitations and a very big bug. You can only send them in one-on-one calls; Twitter says it will roll out the feature to groups “soon”. You can only send texts and links. And Twitter warns that there is no protection against man-in-the-middle attacks. “So if someone — say, a malicious insider, or Twitter itself as a result of mandatory legal process — compromised an encrypted conversation, neither the sender nor the recipient would know about it,” it said on Twitter.
The company plans mechanisms to make man-in-the-middle attacks more difficult and to warn users in case of a fall. “As Elon Musk said, when it comes to direct messaging, the standard should be, if someone puts a gun to our head, we still can’t access your messages,” the company wrote. “We’re not quite there yet, but we’re working on it.”
Twitter also notes that while messages and reactions to encrypted DMs are encrypted, “metadata (recipients, creation time, etc.) is not, and neither is linked content (only the links themselves, not the content they point to, are encrypted ).“ ”
Encrypted DMs appear to be a priority for Musk; It’s a feature he introduced to employees in November as part of Twitter 2.0. But blue ticks are unpopular enough as it is, and I doubt paying for an important feature that you can easily get for free elsewhere will improve their reputation.