X has announced a temporary halt to its encrypted direct messaging (DM) feature, citing a need to implement “improvements” on the platform. The company’s engineering account posted the update, stating that users will retain the ability to view previously sent encrypted chats but will be unable to initiate or send new ones. The social media giant did not provide a timeline for the feature’s reintroduction.
“Starting today we will be pausing the encrypted DMs feature while we work on making some improvements. You will still be able to access your encrypted DMs, but won’t be able to send new ones,” X’s engineering team confirmed the development in a post on the social media platform.
The now-paused encrypted DMs were a relatively recent addition to X, rolled out in 2023 exclusively for verified users. Even when active, the feature operated with notable limitations. Encryption was only available for messages between verified users who mutually followed each other or had prior messaging interaction. It should be noted that the encryption did not extend to group chats, multimedia content like photos or videos, or message metadata.
In addition to this, security experts had pointed out that X’s encryption implementation did not offer protection against “man-in-the-middle” attacks, and encrypted conversations did not seamlessly transfer to new devices, posing a challenge for users upgrading their phones or accessing their accounts from multiple devices. These limitations meant that, despite the “encrypted” label, the feature did not offer the comprehensive privacy and security typically found in dedicated end-to-end encrypted messaging applications.
The unexpected halt of encrypted DMs comes amidst ongoing speculation about “XChat,” a rumored chat platform from the company. X employees have previously hinted at XChat, which is reportedly designed to be a more comprehensive messaging service akin to WhatsApp, featuring encrypted direct messages and additional features such as file sharing (including PDFs), disappearing messages, unread status toggles, message deletion for all participants, and voice messages. While X has not officially revealed details about XChat, the current pause on encrypted DMs could be related to the development and backend integration of this anticipated new system.
The decision to pause encryption also follows a period of technical difficulties for X’s in-app inbox. The messaging functionality experienced numerous issues last week as part of a wider site outage, potentially linked to a fire at an Oregon facility utilized by the company. Updates on X’s developer platform page suggest that some of these underlying technical problems may still be unresolved, potentially contributing to the “improvements” cited for the encryption pause.
