Twitter said that a security blunder caused Circle tweets, which are posts that are only sent to a select group of trusted friends, to become publicly visible. Early in April, TechCrunch revealed the bug, but today, Twitter Circle users received an email from the platform confirming the problem.
The email explained, “In April 2023, an attack on security may have allowed users beyond your Twitter Circle to see tweets that ought to have been restricted to the Circle to which you were posting.” According to Twitter, the bug has been rectified and the team is aware of its root cause.
Security Issue Allowed Twitter To Detect It
For months, Twitter Circle has been problematic, which is troubling for a service that users use to tweet things they don’t want all of their followers to see. When we first reported on the problem last month, many users complained that individuals outside of their Circle were like their private tweets; one user even claimed that she uploaded nude photographs on her Circle, which slipped through the gaps and appeared for undesired eyes.
Most of the time, Circle tweets appeared in the For You timeline to people who followed the poster but were not in their Circle. Others said that their followers weren’t the only ones who were seeing their Circle tweets.
Despite privacy violations, certain Circle tweets continue to appear without the green banner designating that they are only viewable to a limited audience. The retweet button will be greyed out, indicating that these tweets are private. Although it’s not necessarily a privacy concern because these tweets are still only reaching their intended Circles, it can make for a confusing user experience.
