A bug on Twitter has been discovered, which exposes private Circle posts to outsiders. Users have reported that some private Circle posts show up in the For You recommendations of their followers, and in some cases, strangers. This could potentially be a problem for users who are discussing sensitive topics or want to avoid harassment.
While Twitter has disbanded its public relations team, the creator of the Circle feature, Theo Brown, has told TechCrunch that Twitter may not be filtering out Circle tweets from its recommendation system before sharing them with other users. This means that even if a tweet is marked as Circle-only, it may still be visible to outsiders.
The Circle feature has been experiencing glitches for months, but previously, these glitches had not resulted in tweets being shared with people outside of a Circle. In some cases, the Circle-only label was not included, even though it was clear that the post could not be shared outside of the Circle. This new bug is a significant concern, as it means that private posts cannot be trusted to remain private.
Twitter has faced several technical issues since Elon Musk purchased the company and laid off numerous employees. There have been multiple outages, API changes that caused problems, and confusion over feature rollouts and removals. While these issues have not necessarily caused users to abandon the platform, they have not helped Twitter’s efforts to retain advertisers and turn a profit.
This latest bug will likely add to Twitter’s growing list of issues and could potentially further damage its reputation. Twitter users who use the Circle feature should be cautious about what they share, as there is currently no guarantee that private posts will remain private.
