Twitter has finally launched encrypted Direct Messages (DMs) as per a new help page published on May 10. Encrypted DMs on Twitter were first teased back in November 2022 and the platform's owner Elon Musk has talked about it multiple times since then. While the launch of this feature is one step in the right direction when it comes to privacy and security, Twitter still has a long way to go to match the privacy and security offered by messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Signal, and Apple's iMessage because the current version of Twitter's encrypted DMs appears half-baked and rushed, and comes with a lot of serious limitations: It's not end-to-end encryption: "Currently, we do not offer protections against man-in-the-middle attacks. As a result, if someone–for example, a malicious insider, or Twitter itself as a result of a compulsory legal process--were to compromise an encrypted conversation, neither the sender nor receiver would know," Twitter explained. End-to-end encryption is the privacy gold standard because it prevents anyone other than the sender and receiver from seeing any messages. Even the platform that facilitates the messaging cannot access the message's contents. But as Twitter has clearly noted on its support page, this is not the case with encrypted DMs on Twitter. This privacy limitation, however, can be a plus point for Twitter when it comes to appeasing regulators and law enforcement agencies, most of whom have been against end-to-end encryption as it makes it difficult for them to tackle crime. It's a paid feature:…
