Twitter’s newest feature ‘Tip Jar’ has been recently launched on the social media platform that allows users to deliver monetary tips to other Twitter users directly via PayPal.
Newest addition to Twitter feature family:
As was published in the Twitter blog post, the latest ‘Tip Jar’ feature facilitates a Twitter user to tip users of their choice.
On a user’s Twitter profile, the Tip Jar icon will appear next to the “Follow” button. By clicking this icon, the other user can select an appropriate payment service to submit money.
For payment methods, the social media platform currently provides support for PayPal, Patreon, Venmo, Bandcamp, and Cash App while android users have the additional choice of Spaces
Twitter also provided that there will be no deductions made due to the Twitter Tip Jar feature.
The feature has been currently deployed to only a limited number of Twitter users around the globe in English.
The social media noted plans to further expand the feature to more languages in the world.
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Security hazards of Twitter ‘Tip Jar’:
Even though the novelty and convenience of the feature are to be considered, many have raised their eyebrows regarding the security hazards of the Tip Jar.
Security researchers analyzing the security of the feature detected an issue that disclosed the sender’s PayPal address to the recipients.
It was provided that this severe security flaw resulted in the receiver only needing to access the receipt of the tip to get the address of the Paypal sender.
Soon after the security flaw was discovered, it was found that the issue remained persistent due to PayPal’s transfer mechanism rather than Twitter.
As a result, the data leakage security flaw directly affects the users of the social media platform.
It is to be noted that users can opt to keep their address concealed by selecting the ‘No address needed under Shipment Address’ form field before issuing the transaction.
When the details became public, Twitter confirmed the vulnerability was present in the Tip Jar prompt and Help Center. It is still uncertain if PayPal and Twitter are able to resolve this issue.
