Privacy takes center stage as X disables post sharing with specific contacts
Twitter, formerly known as X, is discontinuing its Circles feature, which was designed to provide users with the ability to share content with a restricted audience.
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Highlights
- Some users’ private posts were shared with other followers and other people who weren’t part of the user’s Circle
- X announces that it will disable the Circle feature by October
Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, has come up with the decision to end the ‘Circle’ feature due to security concerns. This feature allowed you to share posts only with a specific group of people. It’s similar to Instagram’s ‘Close Friends’ feature.
According to X’s decision, the company will phase out the Circle feature by 31 October. After that date, users won’t be able to add new people to their circles.
X had introduced the Circle feature last year, after beta testing, users were able to add up to 150 people to their circle and were limited to creating only one circle.
The concerns occurred when Circle posts were not labeled with a green flag, causing confusion for a Twitter Circle exclusive tweet. A green badge will appear under the tweet that says, “Only people in the user's @'s Twitter Circle can see this tweet.” The green badge is what notifies your circle followers that they're in the circle of trust.
In April, people reported that the Circle posts were appearing on other timelines, raising privacy concerns.
PSA: we’re disabling Circles by October 31.
— Support (@Support) September 21, 2023
more info → https://t.co/sHY9l6SUFw
The changes after the date
X on a post says that users will now not be able to create new posts, which are limited to your circle, but remove people from your circle by unfollowing them. After which, they will not be able to see the past posts.
This change was required as, due to a software glitch, strangers and other followers not within the private Circle were able to access the posts, which raised a big privacy concern.
Security incident
X notified its users that it was a ‘Security incident’ that was causing circle tweets to be displayed publicly.
The company swiftly resolved the issue, ensuring these posts were no longer visible beyond the intended audience. X conducted a thorough investigation to identify the root cause and taken the necessary actions to address it.
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