X customers can not ship encrypted messages on the platform. The corporate mentioned in that it is “pausing” the function “whereas we work on making some enhancements.” Customers will nonetheless have the ability to view previously-sent encrypted chats, however will not have the ability to ship any new ones.
So far, encrypted DMs have been out there solely on messages between verified customers who’re mutual or who’ve beforehand accepted DMs from one another. Screenshots of the function from X’s labeled it as “early entry.” (Notably, there have been plenty of different essential caveats to X’s encryption, even when it was working, together with the truth that encryption was by no means out there for group chats, multimedia messages or metadata .)
It is unclear when the function will probably be out there once more or if the “pause” has something to do with “XChat,” the corporate’s yet-to-be-launched chat platform. X workers have been about XChat, which is able to reportedly function encrypted direct messages, for a while. Screenshots from leakers recommend XChat might have extra safety features like chats.
Formally, although, X hasn’t revealed a lot about XChat or what is going on on with the present model of encrypted DMs. X’s in-app inbox was one of many options that skilled quite a few points final week after a site-wide outage — probably attributable to a hearth at an Oregon facility utilized by the corporate — induced for the service. Updates on the corporate’s developer point out a few of these points have but to be resolved.
X did not reply to a request for remark.