Twitter users are worried some of their private tweets may be exposed following a major new change. Twitter has been making a bunch of changes to the way its platform works since the end of last year when Elon Musk became in charge. Twitter has become a pretty controversial platform as it continues to put free features behind paywalls, make major changes to things like content moderation, have days where it’s almost completely unusable, and more. This has allowed platforms like Threads to rise up and serve as a strong competitor to Twitter, which one would imagine would encourage Twitter to make changes that actually benefit the site, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Last year, Twitter introduced a new feature called Circles. This was essentially a way to have private tweets without making a new account or locking your existing account. You could invite a number of close friends and followers into your “circle” and they would then be able to see and interact with tweets that only they could see. However, Elon Musk has confirmed they will be “depreciating” Twitter Circles to have users focus more on DMs and Communities for these kinds of private-ish and targeted forms of communication. Now, users are worried what will happen to their private tweets. Will they suddenly become public? No one really knows. One would hope and imagine Twitter would just make it so they stay private, but no more tweets can be posted to Circles, but Twitter has been quite messy lately.
Wait if Twitter is getting rid of Circles what happens to all our old Circle Tweets bc pic.twitter.com/iBHJchFjgB
— Zo? Rose Bryant (@ZoeRoseBryant) July 8, 2023
We’re deprecating Circles in favor of improved Communities & DM group chat
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2023
It’s entirely possible that even if that is the intention, Twitter could still mess things up and make them all public. Users have already said they’re going back and deleting their Circles tweets just to be safe. Twitter has already had a number of blunders in the last year where chaos ensued and led users to think the entire site was collapsing in on itself. It’s fair to fear the worst here as well, in all honesty.
What do you think of Twitter Circles being removed? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.