There is a reason why some tweets are marked as private because there are some users who’d rather not have their tweets made public. Unfortunately according to a recent disclosure from Twitter, it appears that due to a bug, it accidentally exposed private tweets on Twitter for Android from many years ago.
According to Twitter, this bug might have been activated when users made changes to their account settings, like changing their email addresses. The company claims that users who use Twitter for iOS or use Twitter primarily on the web aren’t affected by this bug and that they have since fixed the issue.
The company also states that they have also reached out to users who were affected by the issue and have turned back on “Protect your tweets” if the bug had disabled it. Twitter notes that since they can’t confirm every account that may have been affected that users should probably review their privacy settings again just to be safe.
They add, “We recognize and appreciate the trust you place in us, and are committed to earning that trust every day. We’re very sorry this happened and we’re conducting a full review to help prevent this from happening again.” This isn’t the first time a Twitter bug accidentally exposed private information to others.
Filed in . Read more about Android, Apps, Privacy and Twitter.