What Does Twitter Do With My Data?
As long as you agree to Twitter’s Terms of Service when creating an account, they have your permission to collect and use your personal data.
The site collects this data in order to tailor its ads more closely towards you, and to safeguard your account.
Twitter provides you with access to its information by way of its settings on both website and app, where you can manage what information they gather about you as well as privacy settings to adjust how much they track off-site.
What Twitter does with your data
Twitter collects vast amounts of data about how its users utilize its platform, from location and IP address to personal demographics and engagement patterns. Furthermore, Twitter monitors what content you view or engage with so it can serve relevant ads to you – it even shares this data with third parties unless explicitly opting out.
Twitter claims it uses your data to enhance the Twitter experience for both you and other users, for research and development, including analytics, security and other business needs. Furthermore, they may share it with third parties if their company undergoes a sale/merger/bankruptcy situation.
Twitter provides more details on what it does with your data in its Privacy and Safety policy, accessible on both their website and mobile app by selecting “Settings and privacy,” then “Privacy and safety.”
At Twitter’s default settings, you’ll find various controls for managing what information they collect and how it is used. Here you can manage ad preferences, limit personalized content and control whether or not Twitter tracks you on sites and devices outside its service.
Privacy Settings allow you to download an archive of your data. This ZIP file includes profile info, tweets, Direct Messages and Moments sent or received on Twitter as well as follower and account lists you follow, address book information, inferred interest demographic data as well as ads you’ve seen or engaged with on the platform. Preparation may take 24 hours or longer and access will require both password and verification code for safe viewing.
If you decide to delete your Twitter account, the company can take up to 72 hours to fully delete all associated data from their servers – although your activities can still be searched for and accessed by law enforcement agencies.
Elon Musk has pledged that Twitter will protect free speech without censoring content, yet many users remain wary about what exactly that entails in terms of user privacy. Hackers have long used social media platforms such as Twitter to reveal intimate details of people’s lives through exploiting vulnerabilities that exist there.
What you can do about it
Twitter provides multiple options to manage what it knows about you. Navigating to its “Settings and privacy” section on either its website or app allows users to manage how much data is collected about them, including options under Ad Preferences that let you manage Personalized ads, Inferred Identity data usage, Data Sharing with Business Partners as well as Unchecking “Data Sharing with Business Partners”.
However, business users looking to leverage Twitter’s analytics tools must be ready to share more personal data than individuals; Twitter uses this information to help businesses better understand their audience and optimize advertising strategies – most of its annual revenues came from ads and data licensing alone!
Twitter specializes in improving its analytic capabilities for marketers, brands, and individuals – the more information it gathers about you the better its services will fit to meet your individual needs.
Twitter collects as much data about you as possible, even if it’s unrelated to the activity on your account. For example, they collect non-publicly visible phone numbers and emails addresses in order to provide multi-factor authentication and recover accounts when passwords are forgotten; and can gather details about your interests from tweets you write and people you follow.
Though Twitter strives to ensure its systems are as secure as they should be, in January a hacker revealed the email addresses and phone numbers of 5.4 million Twitter users on Breached Forums – likely by accident but nonetheless showing its weaknesses.
Twitter direct messages are currently not end-to-end encrypted despite being demanded by senators and Elon Musk alike, leaving your DMs vulnerable to anyone with enough technical know-how to gain entry.
What Twitter will do with your data if you don’t do anything
Twitter’s new settings will remove Do Not Track support, modify how user data is shared with third parties, and hold browsing and app activity longer in order to more accurately target ads. If this concerns you, simply decline offers that come your way.
Your account also allows you to opt out of being targeted as part of Tailored Audiences – groups identified by interests and behaviors across apps, websites and devices – in the Ad preferences menu of both Twitter’s mobile app and website settings menu. Furthermore, it’s wise to review all settings to make sure there are no unnecessary apps tracking your activity that could potentially track it back to you.
Twitter may have avoided the privacy scandals that rocked Facebook, yet its growth remains under pressure to generate advertising revenue and compete against bigger rivals such as Instagram who face similar concerns but make billions each year from annual sales.
If you value free speech and don’t wish to limit your Twitter experience, opting out of data sharing by selecting Protected in your privacy settings may still allow your account to stay active while keeping data stored by Twitter for use by them as they see fit. New accounts won’t be able to claim your username but existing data on your Twitter profile will remain on their servers and may be used as they see fit by them if that becomes necessary in future updates or for other uses by them. In addition, turn off ad personalization as well as making sure “Share my data with business partners” is unchecked to further protect privacy in future interactions between companies and yourself and Twitter in future updates!
Twitter provides an archive of your personal data by visiting its Settings and Privacy page and selecting Download archive, creating a zip file containing everything Twitter knows about you. Once verified, this allows you to see exactly which details they hold about you.
At all costs, it is essential to remember the limitations on your control of any social media platform’s data. Twitter may contain private conversations in your direct messages that cannot easily be deleted without also deleting their recipients.
What Twitter will do with your data if you do something
Twitter offers you many tools to manage what the company knows about you, from restricting personalized ads and tracking your off-Twitter activity, to setting how it treats off-Twitter activities like searches. Access these settings either through its website or mobile app; although each offers different capabilities; typically the latter offers more comprehensive controls while its former has less.
Unchecking “Allow Twitter to Share Information About You with Business Partners” allows you to limit data sharing with third-parties; while this doesn’t stop Twitter from sharing your tweets, it does reduce how much personal data is gathered by those without an explicit relationship with you.
Opting out may reduce your ability to access certain features on Twitter, such as searches and trending topics. Although you will still have access to content on the site, you may find less relevant or engaging material available there.
Remember when signing up for Twitter that by agreeing to their Terms of Service you are agreeing to their Terms of Service agreement which includes language allowing the company to use and disclose any personal data to third-parties as they see fit.
Twitter has an insufficient record when it comes to protecting its users’ information, according to hacker Peiter Zatko who successfully sued them in 2022 on allegations they regularly access users’ private messages without authorization from employees.
Twitter settled this suit in 2024 by agreeing to implement new security protocols that included improved oversight and training for employees, but its history has led some people to worry that these changes won’t go far enough; particularly considering Twitter has laid off workers crucial to upholding protections such as these. While this may cause concern, technology companies must always evolve in order to remain profitable; never stop improving products or revising privacy policies!
