Your Twitter Circle Isn’t Actually Private Right Now
Your Twitter circle is your inner sanctuary: while your regular tweets may be good for public viewing, your private thoughts are only for your trusted individuals. So, if your tweets in the Twitter circle are seen by people outside of your circle, it will be bad and break the circle of trust in the Twitter circle. Perhaps you can see where this is going.
According to TechCrunch , “numerous Twitter users” see their personal Twitter Circle tweets appear in other people’s For You feeds. These other users do not belong to the Circle that the tweet was sent to, which means that the main function of the Circle is currently deficient. TechCrunch spoke to several users who have witnessed the bug on their side, who frequently report their Circle Twitter tweets coming from non-Circle followers. However, in some cases, these tweets appear in the feeds of users who do not follow the poster at all.
Take, for example, Twitter user Ian Coldwater, who wanted to verify these reports for himself. They created a circle on Twitter with one of the users, and then wrote to this circle “like if you see this.” If this feature worked as advertised, the only person who could like the tweet (and therefore see it) would be the one Coldwater added to Circle. However, three people liked the tweet, including two people that Coldwater didn’t even follow. Other users reply to Coldwater in the thread, confirming they saw a post in their feeds that was not tagged as a Twitter Circle tweet.
It’s not clear how widespread this problem is or what the risk is of your Twitter Circle tweets appearing in the wrong feeds. However, it is clear that something is wrong with this feature and cannot be trusted due to sensitive or personal thoughts.
If you mainly use Twitter Circles as a casual way to express your thoughts to a select group of people, the risk may not be an issue. If the “wrong” person sees your thoughts about your favorite TV show, this is not particularly compromising. However, if your Twitter circle is your way of talking about your work, finding new experiences without alerting your employer, sharing a difficult personal situation in your life, or any other sensitive information with trusted accounts, this is your warning to stop.
This is yet another example of an important Twitter feature no longer working properly. Despite all the drama surrounding the company’s current situation, it’s clear they no longer have the resources to reliably keep the job going. After all, “Close Friends” on Instagram still works, and “Private Story” on Snapchat still works; But Twitter Circles is not.