Are you a fan of encryption? If so, then this might come as good news – Twitter is planning to roll out full messaging encryption this month, along with the capacity to reply to individual DMs in a chain, as well as use any emoji as a reaction, as opposed to simply choosing from the currently available seven presets. Chief Twit Elon Musk outlined the new time frame for the DM updates over the weekend, confirming previous reports of developments on Twitter’s DM options.

Tweetscription

Again, the biggest update here is encrypted DMs, which would move Twitter more in line with Meta and other messaging apps in providing users with a bit of extra privacy. As seen in this example, posted by Twitter designer Andrea Conway, once encryption is enabled in your Twitter DMs, you’ll see a notification appear on your chat thread that reads, ‘Messages and calls are secured with end-to-end encryption’.

That’ll mean that no one, other than the chat participants, can view the contents within these discussions, which will provide more reassurance and privacy, but could also enable criminal activity, as not even the government or legal authorities can circumvent encryption. Such has been a key concern raised about Meta’s full E2E encryption across all of its messaging products. Despite opposition, Meta is pushing ahead with its plan, with Twitter seemingly moving into line with the same.

The ability to reply to an individual DM, meanwhile, will make it easier to engage in a more specific conversation, as opposed to adding another reply to the broader thread. This example shows how the process will work, with users being able to ‘long press’ on any DM to reply directly to it.

Lastly, there’s the option to reply to a message with any emoji as a reaction. Based on these samples, the process will enable users to tap on the three dots menu and choose any emoji as their reaction. Twitter’s also considering an option that’ll allow users to personalize their default reaction set, but it’s not clear if this will be part of the initial release.

Each of these DM updates could be interesting, and the shift to automatic encryption is a significant step, which Musk has flagged for some time. However, at the same time, they’re also relatively small when it comes to improving user experience, which likely won’t see them as significant interest drivers.

The Wrap

Though it’s currently unclear how Twitter is doing in this regard, Twitter usage has significantly declined since last December. Twitter’s also reportedly struggling to bring in ad dollars, with a new Wall Street Journal report suggesting that 70 of the platform’s top 100 advertisers have not resumed spending on the platform at the same levels following Musk’s acquisition of the app. Given these, it’s hard to gauge just how much impact these DM updates would have; perhaps if they were added as Twitter Blue exclusives, then that could drive more take-up, then again, even Twitter Blue hasn’t done all that well. So, while these are some interesting tweaks, they likely still won’t be game-changers for Twitter.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3kOZSqu