Twitter bug made private tweets from some Android users visible

A bug at Twitter has left shielded tweets from some Android users publicly visible for years. The privacy leak, which dates back to 2014, was closed on January 14, according to Twitter.

The bug with the messaging service could cause the “Protect your Tweets” setting to be disabled unsolicited when the user made certain changes to their account. For example, the privacy issue could occur when the email address associated with Twitter was modified. According to Twitter only the Android app was prone to the bug: users tweeting via iOS or a web browser would not have been affected. It is not known exactly how many victims are involved.

If you had ‘Protect your Tweets’ enabled and made adjustments to the Android app between November 3, 2014 and January 14, 2019, it is recommended that you check the privacy settings immediately. Twitter has since apologized for the bug and says it is doing everything it can to prevent the problems from happening again.