Twitter is killing off its original SMS service. The social media giant has slowly been shutting down support for its SMS feature.
For those who used the service when SMS support was available through the +8988 SMS code, you would know how handy those notifications came in handy when you were offline.
You could send tweets, mention and message or receive them plus other notifications on text.
The service stopped at least for Kenyans – you couldn’t send or receive any notifications. At the inception +8988, Twitter and Safaricom had an arrangement to use the service as the social media giant popularized its product in the country. However, Twitter Kenya was not able to support the service after the arrangement expired.
It’s now official, Twitter has completely turned it off for most countries that still relied on this feature.
It’s worth noting Twitter was built around the SMS format – including the 140 character limit that was recently expanded to allow for tweets with 280 characters.
Last year, tweeting via text was known as a security flaw and this vulnerability led to hackers gaining access to Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account, the company’s very own executive.
The security issues arising from the use of a phone number has had Twitter worried and completely turning it off is meant to help users on the platform keep their accounts safe.
Also, most users now access Twitter via apps and cutting off SMS notifications makes sense for them in order for Twitter to serve ads to them.
A Twitter spokesperson said that they have turned off the remainder of the Twitter via SMS feature except for a few countries that rely on it to use Twitter.
Twitter will, however, send authentication codes for verification using SMS message when securing accounts.
