Users discovered a flaw with Twitter’s Circle feature back in April that allowed the platform to display strangers’ private tweets. Now, almost a month later, the business has addressed the problem. The company informed impacted users in an email obtained by The Guardian that the vulnerability was caused by “a security incident that occurred earlier this year.”
The business states that the problem was “immediately fixed.” It included an apology as well. Twitter stated that it was “committed to protecting the privacy of those who use our service.” The business acknowledged the risks that such an occurrence could pose and expressed its sincere apology.
Some others, including the project’s founder Theo Brown, conjectured that the problem was caused by Twitter’s failure to remove Circle tweets from its recommendation system when knowledge of the disclosure first began to spread online. Since Elon Musk’s original round of layoffs, It hasn’t had a communications division, and the business initially downplayed the problem.
Bugs are surfacing for months now
More generally, since Musk took control of the firm in October, Twitter has had to deal with an increasing number of technical problems. The billionaire has eliminated senior leadership from many of the company’s technical teams and cut the workforce by at least 60%. Twitter has experienced numerous outages over that time, in addition to causing uncertainty with regard to the addition and removal of features.
For the time being at least, don’t bank on your Twitter Circle tweets being restricted to a small group. Users have found a problem that lets visitors see at least some private Circle posts. They commonly appear in the For You recommendations given to followers, but some claim that the content is being seen by complete strangers. As you may see, that might be an issue if you’re talking about a delicate subject or wish to reduce potential harassment.
Will Twitter come up with any statements?
Twitter’s PR department has been abolished, thus it is not accessible for comment. According to the creator Theo Brown, before sharing Circle tweets with other users, Twitter may not be filtering them out of its recommendation system.
Although there have been bugs with Circles for months, it is not known if they have shared tweets with users outside of a Circle. Even when it was obvious that they couldn’t be shared outside of the Circle, they occasionally haven’t had the label identifying their Circle-only status. This is even worse because you can no longer rely on a private post to stay that way.
Also read: Numerous celebrities lose their Twitter verification, while Elon personally pays for some
