Twitter has silently been saving all your ‘deleted’ DMs

If you are active on Twitter, you would know that the microblogging website allows users to delete direct messages of their own side of the conversation. We should mention that this isn’t like deleting messages on WhatsApp, and the recipient still gets the message as it is only deleted from the sender’s inbox.

However, a report from security researcher Karan Saini has emerged in technology website TechCrunch, according to which these messages are not deleted at all. So, while senders would feel that they have deleted the message they sent, Twitter has silently been storing all the DMs dating years back.

Furthermore, you can also access these messages by downloading archived data on their accounts from the microblogging website. Saini also said in his report that even the messages that users have sent to accounts that have now been deleted or suspended can be accessed.

While Twitter is far from doing what Facebook does to our data, as it is only available to those who sent or received the messages, the fact that it silently saves the messages that it says that it is deleting doesn’t look too good either.

It is also worth noticing that Twitter is aware of the issue. In a statement to TechCrunch, the company said that it is “looking into this further to ensure we have considered the entire scope of the issue.” But then, this doesn’t mean that the company will do something to rectify the issue.

In an unrelated piece of news, the company is testing a new feature called ‘Profile Preview‘, with which it intends to make it easier for users to keep a track of conversations in long threads.

There are times when someone you don’t know comments on your tweet. And if you press on their name to know who they are, you are taken to their profile. While you can find out who they are by visiting their profile, this may also mean that you lose track of the Twitter conversation that you were a part of, especially if other unknown people comment on it too and you individually have to visit everyone’s profile.

With the new feature that Twitter is testing, when you press on someone’s name, a preview card will pop out which will give you some basic details about the person like their follower count and when they joined the platform. You can then decide if you wish to know more about them or if that information is enough for you to continue the conversation.