Twitter began sharing more of your information with advertisers in April 2020. The notice came in the form of a strange notification that said “your ability to control mobile app advertising measurements has been removed” — which meant that Twitter was now sharing data such as which ads you looked at or interacted with, as well as your phone’s tracking identifier.
Twitter removed some of its privacy protections, If you’re concerned about your privacy, it’s worth your time to find and disable some privacy tools.
To do so, navigate to the “Personalization and data” page.
IF YOU ARE USING THE MOBILE TWITTER APP:
- Tap the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner.
- Choose “Settings and privacy” > “Privacy and security” > “Personalization and data.”
IF YOU ARE USING THE WEB VERSION OF TWITTER:
- Sign in with your Twitter credentials.
- Go to the Personalization and data page by clicking on this link.
We, ll discuss the settings as found on the web page,
Disabling ad personalization
You’ll find several advertising settings on the “Personalization and data” page that allow Twitter to “further personalize” your advertising by using information based on your “inferred identity,” location, or other factors. You can enable any of these settings if you want, but you can also disable all of them by using the toggle at the top of the page.
Assess your Twitter data
If you want to go a step further and see what else Twitter knows about you (and possibly remove some of it), scroll down to the bottom of the “Personalization and data” page and click “See your Twitter data.” Check out all of these topics; you might be surprised by some of the information. Here’s a quick rundown of each.
- Account. All of this is basic information, such as your name, age range, whether you have a verified account, and what other languages you speak.
- History of the account. This section is divided into two sections: a list of other accounts that have access to your account and a list of places you’ve been. Check the former to see if any services should not have access to your account; you can revoke permission on the Connected apps page. If you don’t want Twitter to know where you are or where you’ve been, you can disable via Location settings .
- Apps, devices, and data. There are two sections in this section. “Apps, devices, and information” may contain some of the devices and browsers from which Twitter obtains information if you allow it to. This is what Twitter means when it asks to “Personalize based on your inferred identity” on the “Personalization and data page,” and it is one of the permissions that can be revoked. The second option, “Connected apps,” provides access to several of the previously mentioned pages.
- Account activity. This allows you to see which accounts you have blocked or muted.
- Interests and advertising data. This is a section you might spend a lot of time in, especially with “Interests from Twitter,” which lists all of the different interests that Twitter has matched to you based on your activity. Set aside a few minutes if you intend to thoroughly review this.
- Finally, “Download archive” allows you to download a backup of your account history and activity.
If want to be completely safe? You might as well learn more about Deleting Twitter history.