Private Twitter accounts visible on Facebook

Messages from private Twitter accounts should be only read by other Twitter accounts that have been approved by the owner of the private Twitter account. I discovered that messages from private Twitter accounts can be read by other users on Facebook.

Peter Dedecker is one of my friends on Facebook. I am however not a follower of his private Twitter account. With my Twitter account I do not have access to his private Twitter messages.



Peter installed the Twitter application on Facebook, showing his Twitter messages on his Facebook account.



If you have a private Twitter account you have to be careful by installing the Twitter application on Facebook. This application assumes that all your friend on Facebook have also been accepted to follow your private messages on Twitter.

Update September 14, 2007
According to this blogpost new Twitter accounts cannot be accessed anymore thru Facebook. I just checked if I still have access to the private Twitter account used in the original post, which is still the case. It seems that private Twitters accounts that already are linked to Facebook accounts remain visible.