‘Twitter is not working on encrypting private messages for the time being’

Twitter has put plans to encrypt users’ private messages on hold for the time being, a US tech site claims. The decision was mainly due to lack of time.

Twitter never formally announced that it would encrypt private messages, but the reliable American newspaper The New York Times reported in October that the social network was planning to do so. In this way, the social network would like to make it more difficult for the intelligence services and hackers to intercept users’ private messages.

However, according to sources from technology site The Verge, the plans have been put on hold for the time being. Employees working on the encryption are said to have been ordered to stop, without it being clear why. However, the decision would have been made mainly because of time pressure and not because of a change in vision, the tech site says.

Twitter has a good reputation among privacy activists. The company declined to cooperate with Prism, the massive spy program exposed by Edward Snowden, and is critical of the US government’s requests for information from users.