Twitter Safety Tips

I am hardly the authority on Twitter and what makes Twitter such a huge success on the interwebs, nor am I some leader in Twitter Safety. When working or surfing the web on a daily basis it’s very easy for people to forget just how wild the web can be, and when those people forget it opens up opportunities for people to commit Twitter crimes or Twitter related crimes.

Before everyone gets bent out of shape please recognize that there are many other internet crimes that are committed on a daily basis that have nothing to do with Twitter. However I do feel that because of the type of social tool that Twitter is there are some additional risks that people should be aware of when tweeting on Twitter.

I thought it would be a good idea to post a few Twitter Safety tips that might help someone in the event they are in search of Twitter Safety Tips for their own use or in order to safeguard their children. For avid Twitter users and avid internet users many of these basic safety tips will seem useless to you, however since there are millions of people that have never used Twitter before and that do not surf the web daily, this information might be useful to them.

Twitter has a tremendous amount of benefits due to it’s “instant” abilities, sending a tweet can instantly inform your Twitter followers of your latest meal, breaking news or information about your future plans. Twitter is an excellent way to get the word out and get it out quickly, having a popluar tweet can mean tons of re-tweets to follow, re-tweets were recently credited as major factor in Demi’s Moore’s Twitter followers stopping a Suicide.

Twitter can also be a very bad thing and people need to be educated and aware when using Twitter on a regular basis or allowing teens to use Twitter, or eve worse pre-teens. Anyone that has a Twitter account can potentially follow anyone else that has a twitter account, and since Twitter seems to have that same popularity as My Space people are constantly looking to get more twitter followers.

10 Twitter Safety Tips

• Education

Be educated in regards to exactly what Twitter does and why people use it. Twitter is a “status update” or “micro-blogging” tool that allows users to post messages with a maximum of 140 characters. Anyone that follows you on twitter will than see your “tweet” which can also be sent to any of your twitter followers cell phones through SMS, it also means your followers can re-tweet your message to all of their followers. In short this means if you post a tweet on twitter it will than be viewed by many others, remember it’s going on the WORLD WIDE WEB. Popular search engines like Google, and Yahoo have began to index Twitter messages and return those messages in everyday search results.

• Awareness

Be aware that others can and will read your tweets, others will also have the ability to re-tweet your message which means that strangers can than view your tweet. This is excellent for people trying to spread the word about blogs, products, and services that they sell but it might not be a great thing for someone tweeting about their up coming vacation plans. With tools like Twitter Local it is very easy for someone to find another twitter user in their local area, imagine tweeting about your vacation to a potential burglar that you thought was an innocent twitter follower.

• Security

Avoid giving your password out to any strangers and keep it limited to only those family members that you know have your best interests in mind. Never give out personal information such as social security numbers, telephone numbers, home or business address’s or travel plans to anyone on twitter. Regardless if they ask for it or not.

• Parental Guidance

I doubt that I am the only parent that feels that children do not belong on MySpace, if you search through MySpace pages at any given time you will see teens and children giving away information and pictures to complete strangers constantly. As a matter of fact it’s also a proven fact that teenagers seek attention from strangers on popular sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Parents should be educated about exactly what Twitter does and what types of messages get posted on Twitter before they allow any pre-teen or teen to use twitter. Imagine a local loser using twitter to connect with your child than using that connection as a tool to lure your child into a very dangerous situation. I personally feel that Twitter is not a place for teenagers (under 18) or pre-teens, any parent that chooses to allow their children to use twitter should educate their children about some of the basic Safety Tips for using Twitter.

• Inform

In the event you should ever receive a threatening message on twitter or about twitter seek a friend or relative and inform them of your concerns. Make detailed notes in regards to any of these threatening messages and what twitter follower tweeted or sent a direct message with the threatening tweet. There are also numerous local Law Enforcement Agencies using twitter on a daily basis and that number continues to grow. In the event your local Law Enforcement Agency is on twitter you can communicate your concerns with them through twitter, if your not sure if your local Law Enforcement uses twitter you can search using twitter or seek information directly from your local Law Enforcement.

• Set Boundaries
  

Before you sign up for twitter take a few minutes to set some boundaries for yourself to follow and keep in mind when your using twitter either on the web or with a hand held device like a Blackberry or iPhone. Does everyone really need to see that picture of you in a skimpy thong posted on Twit Pic? Is it really important that your friends or maybe people that are not your friends know exactly when your going to bed? Trust me people tweet this stuff, I know I don’t think it’s important for everyone that follows me on twitter to know when I leave my house for work or where I am having breakfast.

• Inconsistency

This is something I constantly find myself doing when I use twitter, especially when I use Uber Twitter on my Blackberry phone. I avoid sending tweets of exactly what I am doing at that time, I may send a tweet of what I was doing 10 minutes ago or where I was a half hour ago, but I never post tweets of exactly what I am doing when I am on the road.

I would also recommend breaking your tweets up, if you go jump in the shower and tweet just before doing it at 7am every morning than you tweet when your leaving your house at 8:30am for work than again when you reach work at 9am your setting up a pattern. Patterns are very easy for the wrong people to read and pay attention to, especially if your telling them every single morning Monday through Friday that your never home after 8:30am. Think about it, Inconsistency is a good option for someone using twitter for fun.

• Research

Along with the risks of using Twitter come the risks of using the many Twitter Tools that are created every single day in the twiterverse. Many of these twitter tools and twitter applications request your Twitter user name and Twitter password in order to use their service, take some time to reaearch a twitter tool or twitter resource before just throwing your information in the box.

• Limit

Limit the amount of personal information you include on your twitter profile, especially if your using one of those nifty twitter background generators to create a more personal twitter experience. There is nothing wrong with expressing yourself on twitter through a creative background or profile, but there is a risk to giving out too much personal information while doing so.

• Update

If your going to use twitter than chances are you will find yourself clicking all kinds of odd looking links, there are numerous URL shortening services out there that assist in staying under the 140 character limit of twitter. Update your anti-virus protection, browsers and anti-phishing programs on a regular basis to reduce the risk of contracting a virus from an unfamiliar link. It is always a good idea to only click links posted by people you actually know as opposed to links from strangers.

Recent Twitter Crimes or Twitter Related Crimes

Twitter is still new and continues to explode in popularity, however it still continues to pale in comparisson to the amount of users of Facebook and some of the other popular sites out there like Craigs List. As the popularity of Twitter continues to grow so will the list of twitter crimes. Society’s concern over these crimes will also grow as parents that do not stay educated to some of the social netowrking sites and tools out there continue to be shocked by the increase in twitter related crimes.

FBI Arrest Sheds Light on Twitter Crime Scenes

The arrest this month of an Oklahoma City man who is accused of posting death threats on Twitter shines a light on how law-enforcement agencies are conducting investigations in the age of microblogging, when blogs and MySpace sites can be far more useful than fingerprints.

Tila Tequila Hit by Death Hoax on Twitter

Radar Online reported that at 2:39 a.m. Monday, a Tweet was sent out that said, “Tila Tequila is dead,” which was followed by a second post, in which the person bragged, “I just broke into her house, killer her and her dog. Logged onto Twitter to tell you guys. She was signed on already. Tila Tequila is dead.”

Twitter Scam Can Result In Identity Theft

As the scam season continues to grip the people in different ways , it becomes very difficult for some one who has been conned, to get rid of as soon as possible. Thus prevention in term of aware and alert citizen is the key factor , one should keep in mind to swiftly beat the scammers .

This list of Twitter Safety Tips and Twitter Safety Information are not meant to scare people into not using Twitter, it is meant to inform the uninformed about some safeguards to keep in mind when using twitter. Please DIGG , StumbleUpon and Re-Tweet this article and create some awarness for those internet users and parents that don’t nescsacrily understand the dangers of using Twitter improperly. Twitter is an excellent tool for business owners and individuals alike, I urge you to try twitter and follow some of your favorite major brands or news outlets and see the true power of twitter….. Just be intelligent about how you use twitter.

Tagged as: information, twitter local, twitter safety tips