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'Delete your Circles nudes': Elon Musk’s Twitter accused of making private posts public

Twitter Circles is a feature on the microblogging site that allows you to restrict certain tweets to a curated list of pre-approved followers

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Elon Musk’s Twitter is in the news again, and not for a good reason. As per reports, the microblogging site’s Twitter Circles has been facing a major glitch, resulting in private posts releasing on the main 'For you' feed. Several Twitter users took to the platform to complain about it. 

Twitter Circles is a feature on the microblogging site that allows you to restrict certain tweets to a curated list of pre-approved followers.

One of the first to notice the fault was New York Times best-selling author Abraham Josephine Riesman, who tweeted, “Aaaaand Twitter Circles is broken. I posted a nude to Circles yesterday and some (perfectly nice!) rando who I don’t follow just liked it. Delete your Circles Nudes!!!” Journalist Daric L Cottingham shared, “I repeat, Twitter circle is no longer private. This bird app is glitched out.”

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‘Be careful about posting there’

“Yeah, Twitter circles are broken. Twice now in 12 hours I've had circle tweets get likes from people I don't even follow. Don't use circles for anything you don't want everyone to see because it's not private or safe like Twitter claims,” a person posted. Another person wrote, “Hey guys, just a heads up! your Twitter Circle may be available to those who are not in your circle. be careful about posting there.” “Twitter circles are currently not working, not sure why but several artists and content creators have had this problem today,” the third one added.

Besides, New York media worker Adam Moussa spoke to Buzzfeed about the issue and said, “Look, I have 40,000 followers. I work in the media. I have a lot of close friendships on Twitter, but often I wish Twitter were a little bit smaller and I could just talk to my real friends. That’s what Circles is to me and a lot of people. We bitch about people; we talk shit we wouldn’t talk about on the timeline. We talk about sexually explicit things. Some people post explicit photos.”

‘Am I shoving my naked body’

Riesman, the writer of ‘Ringmaster’, told the publication, “I did a boudoir shoot a few weeks ago and had some nice photos of myself taken. One of them was risqué.” Later, she discovered that a person whom she does not “follow back, much less have in my Twitter Circle, had liked the photo that’s a little spicy”.

She added, “It was, ‘Oh god, am I shoving my naked body in front of a load of people? I’ve curated my Circles to people I thought wouldn’t mind, but the general public does not need to see me in my birthday suit.”

‘The trust has gone’

Melissa Ingle, who was a senior data scientist at Twitter before Musk fired many of its employees, called the glitch “a major breach of confidentiality”. Ingle said, “Unfortunately, under Elon Musk this type of thing is more and more likely to happen because of the severe staffing cuts and lack of expertise he has ushered in.”

And, Moussa added, “It seems like the constant tinkering with whatever they want the For You algorithm to be has just fucked this up beyond belief. This kind of portends greater security issues across the board. If you maintain a locked account, what guarantee do you have at all that it will remain locked? It’s a breach. The trust has gone. No one can ever again actually be confident that this shit is not going to completely blow up in their faces.”

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.