Twitter users who use the popular social network from their Android devices should check their settings immediately – especially if they tweeted anytime between 2014 and 2019.
Apparently, a bug affecting Twitter since 2014 exposed some Android users' tweets that were supposed to be private.
Twitter released a statement detailing a security flaw after it was fixed on January 14. It should be noted that the bug did not affect users using Twitter on iOS or their computer.
This particular bug forced the Twitter for Android app to disable the “Protect Your Tweets” settings for Android users who made certain changes to their account settings, such as changing the email address associated with the account.
In total, the bug was active for a period of 5 years from November 3, 2014 to January 14, 2019. The popular social networking platform says it does not have a complete picture of the number of Android accounts affected.
Twitter reached out to affected users to inform them of the bug and also restored their settings. However, users are advised to review their privacy settings to ensure they are set to their preferences.
The social network, which has long been under investigation by the EU for its data collection practices under new GDPR rules, is now under a new privacy investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) over the security flaw that caused the tweet bug.
If Twitter fails to improve its privacy practices, it will face a hefty fine from the EU, which, under current GDPR rules, would amount to about 4% of the company's annual revenue.
