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| Twitter releases Tor for secure tweeting |
Twitter launched the Tor Onion version of its website, enhancing privacy and a network bypassing censorship.
This was announced by software engineer Alec Moffitt on Twitter. The Tor network has also been added to the supported browser sites of the platform.
Twitter is available at https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion if you are using Tor Browser or similar.
Although you can access regular websites through Tor, the new version adds more layers of protection to an anonymous browsing experience designed for the web.
Moffitt said the platform is committed to treating people who use Tor fairly. Setting an onion address is a useful step that shows that the platform clearly meets the needs of Tor users.
Onion services are sometimes referred to as hidden services. Many websites offer versions of Tor, including the search engine DuckDuckGo, news outlets like The New York Times, BBC and ProPublica, and tools like SecureDrop for receiving secure documents that also work on Tor.
Muffett, who worked with the company to implement the onion site, tweeted that he had been discussing the possibility of a possible Tor version of Twitter since 2014.
This happened when Facebook launched its hidden service, an initiative to fix functional problems for Tor users, often mistakenly called a botnet.
Facebook said in 2016 that 1 million monthly users access its regular website or onion services through Tor.
Twitter has launched a Tor-enabled version of its website
Tor encrypts web traffic and routes it through a series of servers to hide user credentials. This is a common way to access censored websites. This makes it particularly important since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which led to Russian crackdowns on Facebook, Twitter, and independent news outlets.
Some ISPs began censoring Tor in December 2021. However, the Tor Project says the extent of the actual blocking has changed. Russian users can still connect via the Tor bridge.
The Onion Twitter service has been around for a long time, and its benefits go beyond just accessing a banned platform.
Onion forces people to use the Tor network because it doesn't work with regular browsers. It also prevents some of the security risks posed by standard URLs.
Premium paths also make it easy for platforms like Facebook and Twitter to monitor malicious activity using Tor without blocking or affecting user services.
While most people don't use Tor to access Twitter, it is an improvement for those who do, and a step toward greater adoption of the system.