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Change these Twitter Privacy Settings to get more privacy on Tweets

by Milicent Atieno
TWITTER

If you are looking for a social network platform that is private, then Twitter should be among the last places you should be looking at. The very nature of Twitter is designed to be open and let information flow uncensored and not interfered with; it’s a platform to air out your opinion freely. Be it your #WakandaOutfit, opinion on Trump, the Super Bowl… hell, you can tweet about the stars all you want!

But just because Twitter was designed to be highly public, it does not then mean you should throw your privacy caution out of the window? I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of having some level of privacy, if not an excellent control of my private information.

If that is you also, here is a short list of things you can do to make your Twitter account have more privacy. And that does not mean turning your public profile to a private one, but that is certainly the best way to go about it, though it is not a choice for some people.

To run a public profile, but still have a tight grip on your privacy information, lock down your personal data, and restrict just who can contact you, keep reading ahead.

#1 – Stop Twitter Tracking from tracking your browsing activities

Based on nothing more than just your browsing history, Twitter can come up with an advertising profile of you. When you think about it, Twitter has all the ‘dirt’ on you based on your entire browsing history; sounds creepy, doesn’t it?

To stop Twitter from accessing your browser activities, go to Privacy and Safety > Personalization and Data > Edit > Track Where You See Twitter Content Across the Web and uncheck the appropriate checkbox.

#2 – Don’t do Tweets with geolocation tags

There is something unsettling about making posts on social media with your current (actual) location tagged in there. You might as well put a marker of your location to a would-be criminal to come and find you.

If you are among users who see the folly in that, here is how to disable geo-location tagging in your tweets. Go to:

Privacy and Safety > Tweet location > Delete location information. It will take about 30 minutes for the settings to take effect, so a little bit of patience is encouraged here.

#3 – Disable being found via Phone Number and/or Email

Twitter has this annoying habit of letting everyone who has just signed up find other ‘friends’ using just their email address or phone number. Sometimes the people with whom we share our phone number or emails, are not exactly the kind of people we would like to see our Tweets. Perhaps your Twitter personality is different form the person they know, and by the virtue of them having your phone number or email in their contact list, Twitter will show you to them as a suggestion of the people they should follow.

#4 – Unsubscribe from Interest-based Advertising

When you join Twitter, you will be automatically added to ‘audiences’ for various advertisers. Unfortunately, there is no way you can opt out of these audiences, although you can stop the advertisers from showing you content. To do so, go to:

Privacy and Safety > Personalization and Data > Edit > Personalize ads, then uncheck the checkbox.

To disable this feature, go to Privacy and Settings > Discoverability. From here you can uncheck both checkboxes on ‘Let others find you by your email address’ and ‘Let others find you by your phone number.’

When you set the above three privacy and security settings, your Tweets will be a bit more secure

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