Exactly one year ago, Twitter announced (opens in new tab) a Tor onion service designed to maintain security and prevent tracking, allowing citizens in countries where the social media platform is banned to continue using it.
Naturally, Russia was in mind at the time of the announcement, which remains restricted to this day. With it being illegal for news outlets to report anything other than the official, government narrative on the war in Russia, Twitter has become an important source of objectivity in the country.
However, Twitter’s so-called onion (opens in new tab) is currently down, leaving users in affected countries currently without access due to national web blocks and susceptible to other filters and attacks.
Twitter Tor onion
Just two days short of its first birthday, it seems that Twitter has allowed the certificate for its onion to expire.
There has been no official word by Twitter on the matter, and since CEO Elon Musk killed off the company’s communications department, it has been notoriously difficult to even get in touch with the platform.
“The onion site is no longer available seemingly with no plans to renew. The Tor Project has reached out to Twitter to look into bringing the onion version of the social media platform back online,” the Tor Project said to The Verge (opens in new tab).
Security engineer Alec Muffett who made the launch announcement on behalf of Twitter last year explained that “the people who built it — at least all those [he] interacted with — are all gone”.
With the network officially banning third-party clients like Tweetbot and countless other controversial moves, some believe that Twitter’s onion may be over and out for good this time.
