In a rare piece of good news about the social network, Twitter DMs (direct messages) look set to get end-to-end encryption. After a reference was found to the unannounced privacy feature in code for the Android app, Musk appeared to confirm the plan, responding to a tweet with a winking emoji …
End-to-end encryption for Twitter DMs
Reverse engineering maestro Jane Manchun Wong spotted the code.
Twitter is bringing back end-to-end encrypted DMs Seeing signs of the feature being worked on in Twitter for Android
‹activity android: name-'com.twitter.chat.composer.encryption. ChatEncryptionKeysActivity" />
‹string name="conversation_key_description">"This number was generated from your encryption keys from this conversation. If it matches the number in the recipient's phone, end-to-end encryption is guaranteed"</string>
‹string name="conversation_key_header"-Conversation key</string>
‹string name-"encryption. keys_title"b Encryption keys</string>Twitter owner Elon Musk responded with a single emoji.
Twitter Blue verification returning on November 29
The biggest change the Chief Twit implemented soon after taking control of Twitter was to revamp the Twitter Blue subscription to offer the blue verified checkmark to anyone willing to pay $8 per month – with no attempt to actually verify identities. To the surprise of no one but Musk, that created open season for trolls, pranksters, and scammers.
Twitter introduced a second checkmark, this one gray, to denote official accounts. That feature lasted just a few hours before Musk killed it. By the next day, the Twitter Blue subscription was gone too.
Musk has now announced that the feature will return later this month.
There’s as yet no indication of whether identities will be verified, or what other measures might be instigated to prevent abuse.
Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff
The Washington Post reports that Musk this morning emailed an ultimatum to all Twitter staff, telling them to either work hard for long hours or be fired.
Business Insider posted a full copy of the email:
Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.
Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
[Google form link]
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.
The email is certain to see a significant number of employees declining to agree to the undefined terms, resulting in a further exodus of staff.
It’s also likely that the email would breach employment law in some jurisdictions in which Twitter operates, by unilaterally changing a contract of employment.
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