Dorsey: Twitter thinking about implementing encrypted direct messages

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says he’s open to implementing more security features in regard to direct messages on the platform. The Twitter chief made the statement in response to a tweet from Edward Snowden, who suggested an encrypted messaging function.

The NSA whistleblower tweeted Dorsey following their Q&A live-stream. “One more ask, @Jack: how about secret, burn-after-reading DMs? Even if E2E encryption won’t work by default in all clients, give us a start!”

In his reply, Dorsey stated: “@Snowden reasonable and something we’ll think about”.

Dorsey, who supports the Pardon Snowden movement (which is trying to drum up support to urge President Barack Obama to exonerate Snowden), had put forward a selection of user-submitted questions to the NSA whistleblower during their talk.

Among the topics discussed during the event were the recent bout of changes Twitter has pushed through, with Snowden providing a frank analysis of the updates the company has been making to its platform.

Snowden, who is current living in exile in Russia, even implored Dorsey to introduce the ability to edit tweets (a feature that Twitter users have been clamoring after for a while now). “Surely, there’s got to be ways around this? Surely, there’s got to be a way that you can tag it as edited? If you click on the edit tab, you can see the previous versions of the tweets, and something like that,” remarked Snowden during the interview.

Twitter has ramped up its direct messages feature this year, with updates that have brought it closer to a traditional instant messaging client — including the ability to opt in to receive direct messages from anyone, and read receipts. If the plan is to match the functionality offered by messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Messenger (both of which provide end-to-end encryption), then a robust security feature would be the natural next step.