Twitter has reportedly abandoned its encrypted direct messages project through which it aimed to make government surveillance more difficult.
According to The Verge, the microblogging giant has stopped working on the project without any explanation leaving the team working on the project in a state of confusion.
Twitter hasn’t provided any confirmation or explanation on the abandonment of the encrypted DM project, but it seems that an exhaustive list of to-do things may have been the reason behind stalling the project rather than government pressure or abandonment of its values.
Twitter started overhauling its direct messaging system last year and encrypted DMs would have been a huge advantage considering not only the deterrence to government surveillance, but also a feature that would have helped it to strengthen itself in the messaging app market – one that is bolstering as of now.
The company has been one of the most vocal tech giants that spoke for the need of more transparency from federal agencies and governments alike and was the only company to have achieved a perfect score in Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) “Who Has Your Back” report in 2013.
We will know more once Twitter releases an official statement about its encrypted directed messages project.
