Social network turns off ability to text after hacks

The ability to tweet via text message has been temporarily turned off, Twitter announced Wednesday.

The move comes days after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s account on the social network was hacked and hours after actress Chloe Moretz’s account appeared to be compromised by the same group.

“We’re temporarily turning off the ability to Tweet via SMS, or text message, to protect people’s accounts,” Twitter tweeted Wednesday. “We’re taking this step because of vulnerabilities that need to be addressed by mobile carriers and our reliance on having a linked phone number for two-factor authentication (we’re working on improving this).”

In a statement to USA TODAY, Twitter said tweets via text messaging, also referred to as SMS or short message service, “represent an incredibly small amount of the content Tweeted everyday.”

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On Wednesday, Moretz’s account tweeted what it claimed to be Dorsey’s son’s Social Security number and other offensive tweets. All of the tweets sent while both Moretz’s and Dorsey’s accounts were compromised were deleted.

Last week, Twitter suspended accounts that the hacker or hackers retweeted while they had control of Dorsey’s account. The company also suspended the account that appeared to be responsible for the hack.

In 2016, Dorsey’s account was taken over by the hacker group OurMine, which also attacked other high-profile social media accounts, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s.

Twitter said Wednesday that it will reactivate the ability to tweet by text “in markets that depend on SMS for reliable communication soon while we work on our longer-term strategy for this feature.”

Contributing: Associated Press

Follow Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko