Riesman did not panic, but he did not want to impose his “spicy” photographs on people. “It was, ‘Oh God, am I pushing my naked body in front of a bunch of people?’” she said. “I’ve curated my circles for people I thought wouldn’t care, but the general public doesn’t need to see me in my birthday suit.”
Melissa Ingle, a senior data scientist at Twitter until CEO Elon Musk began a round of layoffs in November 2022, called the whole thing “a significant breach of confidentiality.” Ingle added: “Your circle is your group of trusted friends, and seeing those posts outside of that group suggests that the algorithm is missing basic functionality.”
For Riesman, the idea that the feature failed isn’t exactly a surprise. “I long ago abandoned the idea that anything I post online will remain permanently secret,” he said. “I’ve mentally prepared myself for moments like this. And it didn’t faze me.” Riesman said that she tweet about the incident “was more of a public service announcement for people who really trust Twitter Circles to be a semi-private space, or at least a controlled public space.” Riesman said she has many trans friends but they haven’t revealed their gender on Circles and could be outed for the mistake.
How the Circles problem occurred and how it is solved are pertinent questions. An email to Twitter’s press department asking why the privacy breach occurred received the now traditional automated response from a poop emoji.
Unfortunately, the Circles bug is part of the online way of life, according to Ellen Walker, who studies internet storytelling and narrative-curated digital culture at the Royal College of Art in London. “As quickly as closed digital spaces can be curated, they can be eliminated in an instant, whether by virtue of technological improvements, broader audience participation, or, in the case of the Twitter Circles innovation, a serious misstep on the part of moderating forces,” he said.
The impact is significant. “It would be one thing if this feature was simply removed and Twitter told its users, but for it to happen unexpectedly without warning feels like a betrayal,” Ingle said. “Unfortunately, under Elon Musk this sort of thing is increasingly likely to happen due to the severe staff cuts and lack of experience he has introduced.” (Musk has laid off or laid off more than half of the company’s total number of employees since he took over in October 2022.)
Moussa also blames Musk’s leadership. “It seems like the constant tinkering with what they want the For You algorithm to be has screwed this up beyond belief,” he said. “This portends bigger security issues across the board. If you keep an account locked, what guarantee do you have that it will stay locked? It’s a breach. Trust is gone. No one can ever be sure again that this shit won’t completely blow up in their face.”
As for Riesman, he seemed more optimistic. “I think there’s a part of us that just expects this now,” he said. “All of us who are still stuck here [on Twitter] “I know the place is falling apart.”
