Twitter is one of the most famous social networks in the world, allows you to connect and talk with anyone, for this reason it is also a very useful tool for online harassment or for the leak of sensitive data, in this guide we will find out how to make it safer Twitter account thanks to ten tips.
Recently, Twitter has been criticized because some people have been targeted by harassment campaigns, spam, hacker attacks, CEO Jack Dorsey hastened to say that user safety is the priority by informing that the social media is at work make the system safer, while we see how to protect the privacy and the personal account.
We state that Twitter, unlike other social networks, is attacked less by malicious people but this does not mean that the chances of finding the account violated are not high.
Usually, accounts are hacked to take sensitive data or to use the account for non-benevolent purposes, often to spam or to cheat other users.
In this article we talk about ten useful points that help to strengthen the security of your Twitter account and prevent the bad guys from accessing and carrying out illicit activities.
These are security settings easily accessible through their Twitter account, of course, do not ensure the inviolability of the profile but make it much more difficult to life hackers and users who want to steal the account.
Meanwhile, Twitter has made it known that it is constantly working on the security of the platform to make all accounts secure and to prevent the removal of sensitive data for illicit use.
The advice you find below are mainly related to the management of login and content, with the ability to limit certain features of the account, and the visibility of tweets and profiles to specific people.
Furthermore, we will see how to disable the ability to send and receive private DM messages to avoid being disturbed, how to block a specific user and how to create a list of words to be silenced on Twitter.
We advise that you never give your password to other people and keep your phone number up-to-date in your Twitter account, which allows you to access two-factor authentication, making the login inviolable.
Finally, also pay attention to applications that require access to your account and that use your data for various purposes, it is always best to read everything carefully before giving consent.
Below we see what are the ten steps to be taken to make the Twitter account more secure.
1) Login Verification
A strong password is not enough to protect your account, for greater security on Twitter you can enable two-factor authentication and access the Setup login Verification feature.
To do this you need to log in on Twitter, click on the profile image at the top of the timeline and click on Settings and Privacy, then on Account and on Setup login verification.
At this point you can continue, Twitter explains that you will be sent an access code on the phone associated with the account that must be entered as confirmation of your identity.
Recall that it is essential to associate your phone number with the Twitter account to have greater security and access.
2) Protect your tweets
Twitter allows you to communicate with anyone and this can also be a weak point in terms of security and privacy, if you do not want strangers or other unwelcome people to see what you write, you can protect tweets so that only followers can see them.
To access this feature you need to go to Privacy and Safety and to “Protect your tweets”, in this way everything you write will be seen only by followers.
We report the official Twitter message that explains this the “Protect Tweets” feature.
“If selected, only those who authorize will receive your Tweets. The Tweets you send in the future will not be publicly available. The Tweets you’ve previously submitted may still be visible to the public on some sites.”
3) Deactivate the Geolocation
When you send tweets, you can show the exact location you are in, this works to help users find others in the same area, but there are cases where this possibility can be dangerous.
You can disable it by going to Settings and privacy> Privacy and safety> Tweet with a location, if it is selected, deselect the item and then click Delete location information.
4) Manage the tag in the photos
Twitter allows users to tag each other in the photos to share experiences on the platform, but some bad guys add tags to content that violates regulation and decor, so it’s useful to set the tag options in the photos correctly.
To do this, go to Settings and Privacy> Privacy and Safety> Photo tagging.
From here you can choose whether to allow anyone to tag you in the photos, allow only those who follow or not allow anyone to do so.
5) Change of the Availability
Twitter uses telephone and e-mail contacts to find people you could know about on the social network and suggests them as people to follow, which means that whoever has your contact information could see you on Twitter and see your face, for example.
To deactivate the Availability function, just go to Settings and Privacy> Privacy and Safety> Availability, just deselect the two boxes for availability via email and phone number.
6) Monitoring of advertising and data
Twitter also keeps track of activities in order to offer personalized ads, if you want to protect your account, you probably want to know how the platform collects and shares data.
To do this you need to log in to Twitter and go to Settings and Privacy> Privacy and Safety and find the item Personalization and data. You can deactivate personalized ads, choose how Twitter can track data or disable everything and securely secure the account.
7) Deactivate private messages
Twitter is a public messaging app but it also allows sending direct messages (DM) to each other; initially it was possible to exchange DM messages between two people, afterwards they were open to anyone. If you do not want to receive DM you have to go to Privacy and Safety> Direct messages.
You can choose to receive messages from anyone, some people or block them altogether. You can also prohibit people from adding you to groups and sending or receiving reading receipts, so that users can not know if you have read a message or not.
8) Muted words
Twitter allows you to mute the words by adding a specific word to your list, in this way the social will automatically filter the tweets containing the words included in the list and will not show them.
To deactivate a word go to Settings and Privacy> Muted Words.
You can enter and delete them at any time, in this way you can manage all the words that annoy or feel offensive.
9) Block accounts
If you wish to deny access to your profile to users in particular, you can block accounts and prevent viewing activities. Users will know of their block; when you block an account, all tweets from the timeline are removed.
If you follow them you will still see tweets and mentions in the notifications, but if you do not follow them, they will not appear in the timeline. Not following them will not know that they will be deactivated.
There are two methods for blocking and deactivating accounts. You can go to the account profile page or open a drop-down menu directly on the tweet. Both methods allow you to lock the account, disable it or report it.
At any time you can check blocked accounts by going to Settings and Privacy> Blocked accounts.
10) Hide contents
There are various types of content on Twitter, which means that many tweets may contain sensitive material if you do not want to see them on the timeline.
Go to the Privacy and Safety tab and you can ensure that sensitive content is hidden from searches and not displayed.
Stolen Twitter account, what to do?
It can happen that a hacker or an attacker has stolen the Twitter account and you know appropriate of sensitive data, to avoid this thing you have to keep an eye on your account.
As soon as you notice oddities, unknown contents or unexpected behavior of your profile, you must immediately reset the profile password and, for safety, also the password of your email account.
If an account is compromised and stolen and there is no way to access it, you must immediately request a new password using the appropriate form, or alternatively you can send a request to Twitter support by choosing the object “violated user or damaged” by including the email address associated with your Twitter account, in addition to the username on the last date on which you were able to access the profile.
The Twitter team will respond as quickly as possible indicating the actions to be taken to regain possession of the stolen account.