Twitter has officially turned off a feature that allows users to ship tweets through text messages following a spate of hacks affecting numerous users worldwide. That means you can no longer use Twitter via text messages.
FILE PHOTO: The Twitter App loads on an iPhone in this illustration photograph taken in Los Angeles, California, U.S., July 22, 2019.
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The move won't be a big deal for the vast majority of Twitter users who could access the social media platform through the app or website.
Chirping complaints
However, there are already complaints from some individuals who still used SMS to examine tweets, The Verge reported. One business, DansDeals, said it relied on the feature to alert users to sales.
"We're taking this step because of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed by mobile carriers," Twitter said in one of a series of tweets.
The move mostly marks the end of an era for Twitter: when the provider launched, it was built for SMS. The character limit was increased to allow tweets with 280 characters, according to Endgadget.
Its original 140-person restriction was tailor-made to text message sizes, and you were intended to ship and get hold of new tweets completely over SMS. That hasn't been the primary way to use Twitter for a long time, though, as more humans sold smartphones and will use the mobile app.
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"We turned off the remainder of our Twitter via SMS feature."
The social media platform temporarily suspended the feature last year after Mr. Dorsey's Twitter account was filled with a series of tweets containing erratic and racist statements. Twitter promptly disabled sending tweets through SMS for all but "some locations."
The Wall Street Journal said a phone number associated with Mr. Dorsey's account was compromised and attributed the security oversight to a cell provider, which it declined to name.
This current update also stated to be about helping "human beings keep their bills safe," in line with a Twitter spokesperson. It's not completely clear what the danger is when receiving tweets in place of sending them; however, Twitter has been curious about phasing this option out for a while now. If humans receive tweets over SMS, it can't display commercials to them, so it'd much as a substitute have human beings checking the app.
"We turned off the remainder of our Twitter via SMS feature, except for a few countries that rely on it to use Twitter," the Twitter spokesperson told The Verge. However, the social media platform will still send "important SMS messages" for securing accounts, like authentication codes.
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How your account could be hacked through mobile phones
Some analysts say hackers have determined methods to quickly get enough information to persuade a telecom provider to transfer from the target account to a fraudster's account. In particular, these could be sent to databases with personal information and would be sold at the so-called "dark web."
R David Edelman, a former White House adviser who heads a cybersecurity research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told The Economic Times that mobile accounts' text messages can be hijacked by hardware techniques.
Through 'social engineering,' Edelman said your Twitter could also be hacked by convincing a mobile provider to migrate your account to another, unauthorized phone.
"It only takes a few minutes of confusion to make mischief like Dorsey experienced," he explained.
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