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Twitter Sued For Scanning Direct Messages
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Twittter is facing a new possible class action suit that accuses the company of violating user privacy. The lawsuit states that the company has been "systematically intercepting, reading, and altering" direct messages, most likely a reference to Twitter's long-standing practice of automatically shortening and redirecting any in-message links. The practice could be used to monitor or redirect any URLs included in a direct message, although it's generally seen as a benign extension of the company's broader link-shortening systems. In a statement to USA Today, Twitter, to nobody's surprise, insisted that the allegations are "meritless."
Facebook is being sued over the same practice, as well as for taking it a step further. If you mention a business's Facebook link (and possibly their independent website URL) in a private message, that mention gets counted as a "like" on the business's Facebook page. So not only were they scanning PMs, they were representing endorsements that didn't exist.
This kind of shit is what you get when you use a huge advertising platform as your "private" communication hub.
I haven't used twitter in five years and in that time they haven't intercepted, read, or altered any of my messages.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Is that, like, still a thing?
Twitter is a free service that users voluntarily sign up to use. I don't remember ever being promised that Twitter would not read direct messages. Where is the expectation of privacy here? Just because other users can't normally see DMs is no implied promise that Twitter isn't going to look at them. If you want private messaging, use a paid service that states so in their terms of service, or better yet, use a messaging application with end-to-end encryption.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Fortunately for us, human instinct is that "we" the people are owed common decency. This occasionally comes back to bite the psychopaths who forget that detail.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
the correct term is tracking engagement
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
No, string manipulation is not inherently wrong. It's manipulating content, e.g. making it so you can track their clicks and obscuring their links, that people are unhappy about.