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Whether you use Twitter for news alerts, social interaction, funny memes, interesting articles or group chats, you are showing Twitter what you’re most interested in. You may also be showing Twitter what you’re most interested in when you leave Twitter and visit other websites.
Perhaps you only follow people who have the same taste in books as you do, or share the same political beliefs. Maybe you retweet topics related to your work, or share silly cat videos. Perhaps you post inspirational quotes and words of encouragement.
Or maybe you use Twitter in all of these ways, plus even more.
However you use Twitter, you’re giving Twitter clues about what interests you. When you leave Twitter to visit other websites, you also may be giving Twitter clues about what interests you.
And Twitter is paying attention.
As both Google and Facebook learn about your areas of interest, Twitter is doing that too. And as with Google and Facebook, Twitter can show you which topics it thinks you’re interested in.
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If you think Twitter is wrong, or you’d prefer not to have Twitter know about certain interests, you can edit your list of interests.
How to Find Out What Twitter Knows About You
To find out what Twitter knows about you, head to the Twitter Interest Page. You can find it by either clicking on this link: Twitter Interest Page or by tapping/clicking on your profile picture.
In the drop-down menu, choose Your Twitter Data, then scroll down to Interests and ad data. Next to Inferred interests from Twitter, tap or click See all.
Note that you’ll have to log into Twitter again, even if you’ve already logged in to your account. Twitter considers this information to be sensitive, so requires your password before you can see it.
After you’ve entered your password you’ll see in the Known For section, at the top of the page. the topics that Twitter thinks you’re known for on Twitter.
You can un-check any boxes if you don’t think the topics you’re known for are accurate. Twitter shows two topics for me: Social Media and Marketing Professionals and Other. (I’m not quite sure what “Other” is, but I’m hoping it includes tech so I’m keeping it checked…)
Below the Known For section is the Your interests section. There you can see a list of topics Twitter thinks you’re interested in.
Some topics might appear twice. For me, technology and tech news appeared twice.
You can un-check any boxes for topics that aren’t of interest to you. For example, if you’re not a parent, you might not be interested in “Parenting K-6 Kids.”
After you’ve un-checked boxes for irrelevant topics, tap/click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
How Twitter Determines What You’re Interested In
Twitter determines your interests from your activity on Twitter and your profile. It analyzes how you tweet and re-tweet, the accounts you follow and other interactions you have on Twitter.
Twitter also looks at your Web activity outside of Twitter, if you’ve given it permission to do so. The Twitter help page says, “For example, if you regularly visit birdwatching websites, we might suggest accounts that frequently Tweet about that topic, or show you ads for binoculars or birdfeeders.”
Twitter also may track your location to show you ads, trending topics and tweets that may be relevant to your current location.
Note that Twitter does say that the data it collects about you is only kept for 30 days and that your privacy is protected: ” To protect your privacy, we never associate this web browsing history with your name, email address, phone number, or Twitter handle, and we delete, obfuscate, or aggregate it after no longer than 30 days, as explained in our Privacy Policy.”
Why You Should Check Out What Twitter Thinks You’re Interested In
You can use Twitter without reviewing the topics Twitter thinks you’re interested in. But by refining your interests and by allowing Twitter to learn your interests, you may make Twitter more relevant and interesting to you.
This process of Twitter determining your interests and refining what it shows you based upon those interests is called personalization.
According to Twitter’s Help page, personalization can improve the tweets, conversations, links and media that you see in your Timeline. Personalization also can be used to show you more relevant ads. “Twitter can show you more relevant Tweets, more relevant suggestions about who you might enjoy following, and better ads.”
How to Opt Out
But you may not want personalization on Twitter. Or for Twitter to track you across the Web. Or for Twitter to personalize your experience based on your location.
No matter how much better your Twitter experience may be, the compromise of your privacy may be too great a cost for you to want personalization.
You can opt out of personalization and data tracking if you’d like.
Tap/Click your profile picture to show the drop-down menu. Choose Privacy and Safety,
then choose Edit, next to the Personalization and Data section where you can customize your preferences.
You can opt out of personalized ads, personalization based on your devices, and personalization based on places you’ve been. (If you’re traveling to a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, you may want to turn off location-based personalization to avoid seeing tweets in a language you don’t understand.)
Twitter also lets you turn off tracking across the Web and opt out of sharing your information with data partners.
After you’ve un-checked boxes, tap/click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
Your Thoughts
Do you appreciate having a more personalized experience on Twitter? Are you comfortable with Twitter discovering your interests across the Web? Have you opted out of personalization and data collection on Twitter?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
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*Twitter chalk image (edited) courtesy of https://howtostartablogonline.net/ via Flickr and Creative Commons
Hi Carolyn,
This is amazing. I didn’t knew Twitter also monitors your online presence. I am glad I landed on your post. I will follow your steps and check my account. Lets see what they have for me.
Thanks for sharing, Have a good day.
Hi Sajid, Yes, it is surprising to learn how Twitter collects user data, even when we leave Twitter. You’re very wise to check your privacy settings to see what Twitter can learn about you and whether they can track you when you visit other websites.
Hi Carolyn,
I never paid attention to this section Your twitter Data, I am shocked how twitter knows so much about its users. Glad I came across this post.
Thank you for sharing such an amazing post.
Hi Radhika, Yes, Twitter does know about its users, but we have control over what they learn and what they do with what they learn. By taking a few minutes to adjust our settings, we can keep our Twitter data more private.