A bug that's been affecting users of Twitter for Android was recently discovered. Apparently, this bug makes every tweet public even if an account has been set to protect tweets.
What's even more surprising is that this bug has been lurking around for years now.
Protected Tweets Went Public
On Thursday, Jan. 17, Twitter broke the unsettling news in a post on its Help Center page. It said an unknown number of Twitter for Android users who originally set their accounts to private might have had their tweets made public for the last four years.
The bug has been around since Nov. 3, 2014, but the micro-blogging site only found out about it earlier this week. The bug was fixed on Jan. 14, the same day it was discovered.
According to Twitter, the bug may be triggered if a user's account is set to private and if account changes were made, such as changing email address, between Nov. 3, 2014, and Jan. 14. Again, this bug only affected those who use Twitter for Android. Those who use the app's iOS and web versions were not impacted at all.
The company has also issued an apology in the same post:
"We recognize and appreciate the trust you place in us, and are committed to earning that trust every day. We're very sorry this happened and we're conducting a full review to help prevent this from happening again."
How To Check If An Account Is Affected
Twitter has sent notifications to those who may have been affected by the bug, and it has also managed to re-enable protected tweets setting in some accounts. However, the company said it can't confirm all impacted accounts, so it encourages potentially affected users to review their accounts and ensure that the preferred settings are reflected.
For further concerns about this issue, users can contact Damien Kieran, Twitter's Data Protection Officer, by filling out an inquiry form.
