Everyone is in agreement that public tweets are public. Twitter also has Direct Messages [1], which they represent as private:
> Direct Messages are the private side of Twitter. You can use Direct Messages to have private conversations with people about Tweets and other content.
I think @stingraycharles was surprised by the response because the discussion surrounded publicly accessible information. The poster might not have realized that Twitter had information that is reasonably considered "private" as well. If DM information (metadata or raw messages) were made available, that would be surprising to millions of Twitter users. And I think we will see more scrutiny of Twitter and other companies in the coming months regarding the use of "private" information.
Unless, of course, you believe that SV and tech companies are not to be trusted in the first place, in which case none of this would be surprising or shocking.
> Direct Messages are the private side of Twitter. You can use Direct Messages to have private conversations with people about Tweets and other content.
I think @stingraycharles was surprised by the response because the discussion surrounded publicly accessible information. The poster might not have realized that Twitter had information that is reasonably considered "private" as well. If DM information (metadata or raw messages) were made available, that would be surprising to millions of Twitter users. And I think we will see more scrutiny of Twitter and other companies in the coming months regarding the use of "private" information.
Unless, of course, you believe that SV and tech companies are not to be trusted in the first place, in which case none of this would be surprising or shocking.
[1] https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/direct-messages