Twitter Class-Action Lawsuit Incoming

Twitter is headed to court.

Think your direct messages are secure and private? That anything you direct message on Twitter is not being scanned or read?

Twitter is facing a new proposed class action lawsuit. The proposed class action suit says Twitter violated its user privacy by “systematically intercepting, reading and altering” direct messages. Twitter has always had a practice of automatically shortening and redirecting any in-message links. While this longstanding practice by Twitter could be seen as a way to read, scan, and redirect your in-message links, Twitter says it’s all just part of the broader link shortening system that has been in place since Twitter’s conception.

While the suit has yet to be granted class action status, onlookers are taking this seriously as the law firm Edelson PC has been retained by the plaintiffs. Edelson is well-known for taking on high profile and very public tech cases.

It is known that messages are secure and encrypted between your phone/device to Twitter’s servers, but like Google and their Gmail, they have the ability to “observe” messages off-server as they pass on the network. Google faced a similar case, but settled before any landmark precedent could be set.

In a statement to USA Today, Twitter referred to the proposed suit as “meritless.”

(Image Source: iCLIPART)