Over the last few days, I’ve been having slightly different versions of the same conversation at work, which usually starts with someone asking me, “What’s going on at Twitter?” I’ve been filling them in with the high-level updates, but not going into the gory, hourly details unless they have been following closely enough for each new drama to make sense to them. But after today’s developments, I have been adding a little bit of instruction to my conversations about the kinds of precautions they should be taking if they have a Twitter account.
I sent a note with some advice to our team chat, then ended up creating a longer document to share with our entire department. I revised it a bit since, but I wanted to share it with you, too. So, I bring you “A Public service announcement for anyone using Twitter.”
As you may have heard, new ownership at my former employer has made some … changes … to the product recently. Without editorializing about them here, I do want to share a couple of recommendations in light of the company’s chief information security officer, chief privacy officer, and chief compliance officer all resigning last night (doing these things on the desktop site is fastest):
1) Download your data- If you want to be able to access any of your posted Tweets, images, and videos, even if the site implodes, request adownload of your Twitter data.
2) Revoke app access- You may have connected other apps to your Twitter account, giving them the ability to login to their apps using your Twitter account as credentials. You can remove this access, individually per app, in theConnected apps section of the Apps and sessions setting.
3) Don’t delete your account- This part is optional, but the amount of impersonation is going to skyrocket in the next few days and weeks. Whether you continue to use the service is entirely up to you, but I’d recommend holding on to your @username, for now. If youdeactivate your account, your @username will become available again for anyone to use in 30 days (180 days if you’re already Verified) if you don’t log in during that time period. If someone wanted to pose as you, all they’d have to do is request your current @username, pay the new $8 Twitter Blue subscription fee, and appear to be a verified version of you on Twitter.
If I think of other ways to safeguard your account, I’ll add them to the three recommendations above. Oh, and one more bit of advice: Be very skeptical of any news you see coming from official-looking accounts; the trolling is epic right now.
Lastly, here are a few additional links if you want to go deeper into your account settings, get some help with something, or follow ongoing changes at Twitter.
Exit Stonehenge
10 November 2022
Private parting.
Over the last few days, I’ve been having slightly different versions of the same conversation at work, which usually starts with someone asking me, “What’s going on at Twitter?” I’ve been filling them in with the high-level updates, but not going into the gory, hourly details unless they have been following closely enough for each new drama to make sense to them. But after today’s developments, I have been adding a little bit of instruction to my conversations about the kinds of precautions they should be taking if they have a Twitter account.
I sent a note with some advice to our team chat, then ended up creating a longer document to share with our entire department. I revised it a bit since, but I wanted to share it with you, too. So, I bring you “A Public service announcement for anyone using Twitter.”
As you may have heard, new ownership at my former employer has made some … changes … to the product recently. Without editorializing about them here, I do want to share a couple of recommendations in light of the company’s chief information security officer, chief privacy officer, and chief compliance officer all resigning last night (doing these things on the desktop site is fastest):
1) Download your data- If you want to be able to access any of your posted Tweets, images, and videos, even if the site implodes, request a download of your Twitter data.
2) Revoke app access- You may have connected other apps to your Twitter account, giving them the ability to login to their apps using your Twitter account as credentials. You can remove this access, individually per app, in the Connected apps section of the Apps and sessions setting.
3) Don’t delete your account- This part is optional, but the amount of impersonation is going to skyrocket in the next few days and weeks. Whether you continue to use the service is entirely up to you, but I’d recommend holding on to your @username, for now. If you deactivate your account, your @username will become available again for anyone to use in 30 days (180 days if you’re already Verified) if you don’t log in during that time period. If someone wanted to pose as you, all they’d have to do is request your current @username, pay the new $8 Twitter Blue subscription fee, and appear to be a verified version of you on Twitter.
If I think of other ways to safeguard your account, I’ll add them to the three recommendations above. Oh, and one more bit of advice: Be very skeptical of any news you see coming from official-looking accounts; the trolling is epic right now.
Lastly, here are a few additional links if you want to go deeper into your account settings, get some help with something, or follow ongoing changes at Twitter.
Your Twitter settings
Twitter Help Center
New York Times Twitter coverage
Washington Post Twitter coverage (30 days)
The Verge Twitter coverage
If you have additional recommendations, please let me know.
See you tomorrow?