Time to check your Twitter settings
If you open Twitter on the desktop right now you may get a notification that the company is updating is privacy policy.
The notification reads: We're updating our privacy policy to bring you a more personalized Twitter experience. We'll soon be making Twitter more relevant by using your visits to sites with Twitter content. And we've given you even more control over your data".
The prompt has a big "sounds good" button, and a smaller "review settings" link. The latter links directly to the "Personalization and Data" section of the Twitter settings.
Time to check your Twitter settings
It may be a good time to check those settings, and others right now. The personalization and data page on Twitter is all about advertisement and tracking.
The following options are available on the page:
- Personalize ads -- You won't see fewer ads if you disable that, but the ads may be less relevant.
- Personalize based on your apps -- Personalizes the experience based on apps you use on your devices.
- Personalize across all your devices -- Enables personalization on all devices you sign in.
- Personalize based on the places you've been -- Uses location information for personalization.
- Track where you see Twitter content across the web -- May use sites you visit for personalization.
- Share data through select partnerships -- If enabled, has Twitter share data "through selected partnerships".
You can use the disable all button at the top to turn them all off, or uncheck some only.
What is probably more pressing right now is that some users reported on Twitter that the company has enabled location tagging without asking.
You can verify if that is the case by going to the Safety settings on Twitter to look up the status of the Tweet location preference. If it is checked, a location is added to your tweets automatically.
I checked the preference, and it was not enabled by default on my system. Some users stated that this is being rolled out, and that it takes time to land on all user devices.
I don't really know whether that is the case or not, but you may want to check the setting just to make sure that you don't share your location with your tweets unknowingly.
You may want to go through the settings there as well, just to make sure that all are configured the way you want them to be.
Closing Words
If Twitter really turned on location tagging without user permission, that would be a big no-no and could backfire. The company did show a prompt on my device to inform me of personalization changes, but did not change the location tagging preference on the device. It is best to check the preference anyway just to be on the safe side.
Now You: Was location tagging enabled on your devices? What about the personalization settings?
Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.