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Jack Dorsey criticizes Twitter for quietly tracking devices users share tweets from during exchange with Elon Musk – who says platform he acquired is like ‘angry birds’ with too many groups ‘fighting each other internally’
- Twitter founder Jack Dorsey criticized the social media company for quietly tracking the devices users share tweets from
- Dorsey characterized the feature as a ‘step backwards,’ but noted that it was added last year before Elon Musk took over the company
- His comments came during a Tweet spat with Musk, which resulted in Musk saying the company was plagued by infighting and comparing it to ‘Angry Birds’
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey criticized the social media company for quietly tracking the devices users share tweets from.
Dorsey characterized the feature as a ‘step backwards,’ but noted that it was added last year before Elon Musk took over the company.
The 45-year-old stepped down as Twitter’s CEO last November, and it is unclear whether the device tracking feature was added before or after his departure.
His comments came amidst a spat of tweets he fired off Sunday evening, including an exchange he got into with Musk over the renaming of the Twitter feature Birdwatch.
On Saturday Musk announced that Birdwatch – intended to hamper misinformation by allowing users to add notes to tweets – would be rebranded as ‘Community Notes,’ a name which Dorsey called ‘the most boring Facebook name ever.’
Musk rebuked Dorsey over a series of tweets, finally comparing Twitter to the game ‘Angry Birds’ and saying it was plagued by infighting.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey criticized the social media company for quietly tracking the devices users share tweets from. He noted that the feature was added before Musk bought the company
Dorsey pointed out that all information after the ‘?’ in tweet URLs was not needed to share a tweet
Dorsey pointed out that the URL addresses on tweets include a line of code which is not necessary for sharing tweets.
‘Nothing needed after the ?’ he wrote, referring to the question-mark in tweet URLS.
Twitter sleuths like user Joshua Steinman determined that the lines of code which follow the question-mark in URLs are unique to the specific device the tweet was shared from.
The feature allows Twitter to know where any shared tweet comes from, even if the person posting the tweet does it from an account not associated with their name.
In his tweet Sunday evening, Dorsey seemed to raise his eyebrows at the feature.
‘These tracking additions when sharing a tweet are a step backwards,’ he wrote.
As pointed out by Dorsey, users can sidestep the device tracking by deleting any information after the ‘?’ in a tweet URL before sending it.
Twitter user Joshua Steinman posted a thorough breakdown of how he determined that Twitter was tracking devices through shared tweet URLs
Minutes before tweeting about Twitter’s tweet-share tracking, Dorsey questioned Musk directly about his intentions for improving the accuracy of information available on Twitter.
‘Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world,’ Musk had tweeted. ‘That’s our mission.’
‘Accurate to who?’ Dorsey responded.
Musk then said that he wanted accuracy to be fostered by Twitter users themselves, and pointed to the Community Notes feature as the means to do that.
When Dorsey responded saying he thought the old name was better, Musk said ‘Birdwatch gives me the creeps.’
‘Not everything needs to have ‘bird’ in the name!’ he added. ‘Too many bird groups fighting each internally other at Twitter. Angry Birds.’
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