A bug that has plagued Twitter since 2014 exposed the tweets of some Android users that were intended to be private. Twitter first disclosed the issue on its Help Center today after apparently fixing the issue on January 14th. The bug didn’t affect people using Twitter on iOS or desktop.
According to the micro-blogging platform, the bug (now fixed) disabled the “Protect your Tweets” setting if certain account changes were made on Android devices.
The company said it has informed those who were affected by the bug, and has turned “Protect your Tweets” back on for them if it was disabled.
“We encourage you to review your privacy settings to ensure that your aProtect your Tweets’ setting reflects your preferences,” said Twitter, adding it is sorry that this happened.
In May last year, Twitter asked its 336 million users to change their passwords after it discovered a bug that stored passwords in plain text in an internal system. Twitter said it found no sign that hackers accessed the exposed data but advised users that they should enter a new password on all services where their current password has been used.
Twitter is also facing an investigation by privacy regulators in Ireland over data collection in its link-shortening system