Twitter Fixes Circle Glitch That Took Private Tweets For A Ride, Made Users' Explicit Photos Public

MICRO-BLOGGING site Twitter has acknowledged the glitch that made Twitter Circle tweets public. Affected users received an email communication from the service confirming the "security incident" that led to the seepage of private (kind-off) tweets in April 2023.

Coming to unforeseen leaks, the bug led to the seepage of explicit photos of Abraham Josephine Riesman, author of Ringmaster, posted on her Twitter Circles, as per BuzzFeed News. Another user, Adam Moussa, a New York media person, shared how his circle tweet was liked by unintended users. To spice up things further, the platform puffed with instances of Circle Tweets leaking to users outside the group.

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The remedial letter came weeks after the incident was reported by media outlets. Viewed by Fortune, the email reads, "In April 2023, a security incident may have allowed users outside of your Twitter Circle to see tweets that should have otherwise been limited to the Circle to which you were posting. This issue was identified by our security team and immediately fixed so that these tweets were no longer visible outside of your Circle."

The mail from Twitter Office of Data Protection claims the platform conducted "thorough investigations" to understand why it happened and has successfully solved the issue. Further, Twitter iterated its commitment to privacy. "We understand the risks that an incident like this can introduce and we deeply regret this happened," the email added.

As for corrective measures, no action is required from the user's end to patch the issue, reads the automated mail.

For the unversed, Twitter Circles was launched last year for users who wished to post for close friends rather than the entire audience on the platform. After opening Twitter composer, a user can toggle the choose audience menu to 'Twitter Circle' and share the tweet.

Meanwhile, Twitter was recently in the news concerning an over 50 per cent churn rate of its early bird subscribers. The subscription service was announced by the new chief Elon Musk after he took over Twitter last year. Twitter Blue is a premium service with benefits including editable tweets, verified checkmark, longer tweets and more. However, these benefits don't seem enough after the recent revelations.