Following the changes to direct message behavior that Twitter implemented the other day, the company has addressed concerns of potential spam by apparently banning the ability to send links to most websites within direct messages. Third party apps such as Tweetbot still indicate that messages that contain links are still being sent but they no longer show up in the messages list.
According to a number of Twitter users, they are no longer able to send and receive direct messages that contain links except if the links are to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. We’ve given this a test ourselves and indeed, messages with links to sites other than the three mentioned above have been refused delivery. Attempts to send such a message through the Twitter website gives the standard error notice saying, “Sorry, something went wrong. Your message was not sent” while the official apps on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, simply send the message to oblivion, with no signs of refusal to deliver.
Clearly, as Twitter has given a number of users the ability to receive direct messages from followers if they so choose, the risk in receiving spam and phishing attacks through malicious links through direct messages rises significantly. Banning links will definitely remove that risk but it also takes away an aspect of private communication within Twitter.
For many people on Twitter, sending direct messages is the most practical way to contact people especially if they have no other ways to contact them such as through email or text messaging apps for one reason or another. In certain situations, people might want to send links to sites, pages, or posts over direct messages because they either don’t want to make it public or it’s part of a private conversation.
With this ability removed, the majority of private conversations will still occur on Twitter but if Twitter users wish to privately share links with each other, at least at this point, it will have to be done through a separate service.
It’s certainly possible for Twitter to whitelist links to certain major websites as it already has for Facebook, Instagram, and for itself, but it would be a significant undertaking and it is on Twitter’s discretion to decide what other sites, if any, will have its links freely shareable through its direct message feature.
[update]This may be nothing more than a bug according to Jon Russell and Matthew Panzarino. We’ve also done further testing and managed to send a number of links over DM.
