Twitter to soon allow calls, encrypted messaging

Washington: Twitter CEO Elon Musk will not lag behind in adding new features to the social networking site. The business tycoon announced on Wednesday that users can direct message reply to any message in the thread with emojis. Moreover, Twitter is going to introduce voice and video chat on its platform in the coming days for better communication.

Musk tweeted, “With the latest version of the app, you can DM reply to any message in the thread (not just the most recent) and use any emoji reaction. Release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow. This will grow in sophistication rapidly. The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head. Coming soon will be voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform, so you can talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number.”

Elon mentioned that the DM facility will be in action from May 11.

This announcement comes a day after Twitter is going to remove the accounts with ‘no activity for several years.’

Elon Musk tweeted on Monday, “We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see followers count drop.”

A few days back, Twitter was in the headlines as several celebrities lost blue tick from their accounts.

The blue tick served as a way of protecting well-known individuals from impersonation and tackling false information.

“On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified check marks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue,” Twitter said in a post in March.

Twitter first introduced the blue check mark system in 2009 to help users identify that celebrities, politicians, companies and brands, news organisations and other accounts “of public interest” were genuine and not impostors or parody accounts. The company didn’t previously charge for verification.

Following this ‘blue tick’ fiasco, Musk announced on April 30 that Twitter will allow media publishers to charge users on a per-article basis with one click from May.

He tweeted, “Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per-article basis with one click. This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per-article price for when they want to read an occasional article. Should be a major win-win for both media orgs & the public.”