Twitter gets new messaging features; Elon Musk promises encrypted DMs this Wednesday

Twitter is getting a bunch of improvements for its messaging feature, including a new emoji picker and individual reply capability. Nonetheless, the most significant improvement might be the encrypted messages Twitter owner Elon Musk promised to release this week.

Twitter has a lot of work to do to make its platform enticing to everyone again and regain some of the users it lost. With this, the company frequently tries to introduce enhancements to the platform. This week, the company focuses on improving the Twitter messaging system, which should now have new features in its new app version.

We’re excited to launch two new features in Direct Messages today!

? Introducing DM Replies! You can now reply to any message you receive in DMs, making conversations smoother and more intuitive.

? We’ve also added a new Emoji Picker to DMs, allowing you to react to messages…

— Support (@Support) May 10, 2023

According to the Twitter Support team’s recent announcement, users will now see a wider selection of emojis via the new picker in the DM. To recall, the original version of Twitter DM had a very minimal set of emoji, making the reaction experience kind of limiting. This is now changed, and our team can confirm this in the recent mobile app installation.

Also, users should now be able to reply individually to specific messages within the DMs in this new update. According to the company, this should make the conversation “smoother and more intuitive.”

Twitter is not the first to introduce the features. They have been in other messaging systems of other apps (e.g., Facebook Messenger) for some time now, but it is nice to see Twitter adopting them as well. The company also shared plans to walk the extra mile to make its messaging system stand out in the future by bringing more features. As such, Twitter promised to bring web support for the features mentioned above and deliver “better rendering for replies to media messages.” According to Musk, users would also be able to perform voice and video chat using Twitter handles, which should allow you to “talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number.”

With latest version of app, you can DM reply to any message in the thread (not just most recent) and use any emoji reaction.

Release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow. This will grow in sophistication rapidly. The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2023

Aside from those features mentioned above, the main highlight of this week’s announcement from the blue bird company is the arrival of encrypted DMs. As per Musk, the “release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow,” and noted that “the acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head.” The Tesla CEO promised to quickly improve this feature, but it is hard to believe it is actually rolling out now without proof. And given Twitter’s present credentials in fulfilling its promises, it is better to take things with a grain of salt. Yet, in case it really arrives, it could help Twitter restore its image, which is now being eroded by a series of recent privacy issues.