Twitter is launching a Tor service for more secure and private tweeting

Twitter is preparing to launch a version of its platform that will function as a Tor onion service. The service would help the optimization of the network for privacy protection as well as the creation of a network that is censorship-resistant. Alec Muffett, a software developer, shared the news on Twitter on Tuesday, March 8, and he thanked everyone for their support. He regarded his tweet as “perhaps the most important and “long-awaited” that he had ever written, and he hoped that it will help others. According to reports, the Tor network has also been added to the list of compatible browsers on Twitter’s website.

Users had already been able to access Twitter’s regular domain over Tor during this time period. However, the new version that has been released adds further levels of security to the browsing experience, which is already completely anonymous. The levels of protection are designed individually for the network and its users.

This is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I’ve ever composed.

On behalf of @Twitter, I am delighted to announce their new @TorProject onion service, at:https://t.co/Un8u0AEXeE pic.twitter.com/AgEV4ZZt3k

— Alec Muffett (@AlecMuffett) March 8, 2022

Onion services are sometimes referred to as “dark web” services or “hidden services,” while the latter term refers to explicit illegal sites such as the Silk Road drug market, while the former refers to anonymous services such as Tor. Many websites, like the popular search engine DuckDuckGo, now provide Tor-specific versions of their services to their users. ProPublica, the BBC, and the New York Times are among the news organizations that have covered the story. In the past, other sites employed technologies to accept source material, such as SecureDrop, which is also accessible over Tor.

Software developer Muffett works with companies to set up onion sites for their products and services. Since 2014, he tweeted, he’s been discussing the prospect of a Tor-friendly Twitter. Facebook had just launched its own secret service at the same time. It was designed to address critical issues for Tor users, many of whom were mistakenly labelled as botnets. In 2016, Facebook reported that one million people were using Tor to access the onion service each month.

In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tor’s capabilities have taken on new significance. Tor encrypts web data and routes it via a network of servers to hide the identities of its users. To get around internet filtering, this is a common route taken by many people.

There are advantages to using Twitter’s onion service rather than attempting to gain access to a prohibited platform that have existed for much longer. Because regular browsers don’t support Tor’s network, it ensures that users utilize the service. The standard web address has brought certain new security vulnerabilities, and this helps to mitigate those.