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Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

bbc.com

31–40 of 196 posts

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#31
post #23
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Cloud" is like storing your data with skywriting, you can see it from many locations, but so can your neighbors

A very poor analogy when encryption exists

Who said skywriting can't use encryption?

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#32
post #8
post #6

Shouldn't this involve lots of penalties? This has the potential to change/ruin lives drastically. A prudent consumer never trusts what the companies say nowadays. However, that shouldn't absolve the company of falsely claiming private product when it isn't so.

A prudent consumer also doesn't send 'live-destroying' messages on a public, hosted messaging platform, regardless of a private setting... Note that this isn't even about DMs.

I know this is a common disclaimer but this sounds like victim blaming. It says "private" it should mean private and not quote unquote private.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#33

Sometimes, I'm sad I quit using Twitter. There are some neat people sharing content there. But the more time goes by, the less sad I get. Their tech stack is and always has been a bit of a garbage fire.

Name one startup that grew quickly and organically into a massive company which doesn't have a "garbage fire" tech stack.

Instagram

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#34
post #9

Just my own opinion, but at this point I think it's prudent to assume that pretty much anything you send out into the digital network world is public. If it's not something you would want the world knowing you said, don't put it out there. Security breaches happen. Bugs happen. Sometimes law enforcement just comes by and says, "Give me everything that user X has ever done." In short, sh!t happens. "Everything I do on…

> That's the thought we should all have in our heads before we send any post, or send any text, or send any email, or send any photo, or etc etc etc.

I worked for a large company that had gotten into trouble in the past, with written records used as evidence. All new employees were trained not to write anything down that we would not want to see on the front page of the WSJ. It was stressed that even content on personal devices could be subpoenaed and entered into the public record if issues arose.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#36
I had the pleasure of interviewing the anonymous developer of the fastest organically growing decentralized p2p app notabug.io I feel its relevant to this conversation. Why are we not switching to decentralized content sharing platforms? :S

https://electronicsforu.com/resources/cool-stuff-misc/future... https://electronicsforu.com/resources/cool-stuff-misc/future...

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#37
post #8
post #6

Shouldn't this involve lots of penalties? This has the potential to change/ruin lives drastically. A prudent consumer never trusts what the companies say nowadays. However, that shouldn't absolve the company of falsely claiming private product when it isn't so.

A prudent consumer also doesn't send 'live-destroying' messages on a public, hosted messaging platform, regardless of a private setting... Note that this isn't even about DMs.

It is about false advertisement and breach of contract, though.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#38
post #9

Just my own opinion, but at this point I think it's prudent to assume that pretty much anything you send out into the digital network world is public. If it's not something you would want the world knowing you said, don't put it out there. Security breaches happen. Bugs happen. Sometimes law enforcement just comes by and says, "Give me everything that user X has ever done." In short, sh!t happens. "Everything I do on…

The result of this is the attitude that we shouldn’t even bother trying to make services and products more secure. Why send tweets over HTTPS? It’s all public anyway. Why should WhatsApp use end-to-end encryption given Facebook’s hostility to user privacy?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#39
post #9

Just my own opinion, but at this point I think it's prudent to assume that pretty much anything you send out into the digital network world is public. If it's not something you would want the world knowing you said, don't put it out there. Security breaches happen. Bugs happen. Sometimes law enforcement just comes by and says, "Give me everything that user X has ever done." In short, sh!t happens. "Everything I do on…

Nevertheless, we can meaningfully make distinctions between sending a message via Riot or Signal vs. sending "private" messages on Facebook or Twitter.

It's a spectrum and not a binary condition.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#40

At this point it should probably be illegal to call something "private" when there is no guarantee of protections.

twitter uses the word "protected", only the article's author ever used the word "private".

Was it really a good faith effort to make them protected?
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