Twitter
chief
executive
Elon
Musk
confirmed
plans
for
end-to-end
encryption
(E2EE)
for
direct
messages
on
the
platform.

The

feature
is
part
of
Musk’s
vision
for
Twitter
2.0,
which
is
expected
to
be
what’s
called
an “everything
app.”
Other
functionalities
include
longform
tweets
and
payments,
according
to
a
slide
deck
shared
by
Musk
over
the
weekend.

The
company’s
plans
for
encrypted
messages
first
came
to
light
in
mid-November
2022,
when
mobile
researcher
Jane
Manchun
Wong

spotted
source
code
changes
in
Twitter’s
Android
app
referencing
conversation
keys
for
E2EE
chats.

It’s
worth
noting
that
various
other
messaging
platforms,
such
as
Signal,
Threema,
WhatsApp,
iMessage,
Wire,
Tox,
and
Keybase,
already
support
encryption
for
messages.

Google,
which
already
turned
on
E2EE
for

one-to-one
chats
in
its
RCS-based
Messages
app
for
Android,
is
currently
piloting
the
same
option
for
group
chats.
Facebook,
likewise,
began

enabling
E2EE
on
Messenger
for
select
users
by
default
this
past
August.

Musk
further
touted
that
new
user
signups
to
the
social
media
platform
are
at
an “all-time
high,”
averaging
over
two
million
per
day
in
the
last
seven
days
as
of
November
16,
up
66%
compared
to
the
same
week
in
2021.
Twitter
has
over
253.8
million
monetizable
daily
active
users
(mDAU).

The
slides
also
reveal
that
reported
impersonations
on
the
service
spiked
earlier
this
month,
before
and
in
the
wake
of
the
launch
of
its
revamped

Twitter
Blue
subscription.

The

new
subscription
tier
is
tentatively
set
to
be
rolled
out
as
early
as
December
2,
2022,
with
a
multi-colored
verification
system
that
aims
to
give
out
gold
badges
for
companies,
gray
for
governments,
and
blue
for
individual
accounts.