A new change to Twitter’s mobile app will see it collect information about the other apps installed on your phone for the purposes of delivering “tailored content that you might be interested in.”
Twitter points out that they’re only collecting a list of apps you have installed, it’s not collecting any data about what you do within the apps.
The company is calling this initiative an “app graph”, and intends to use the data to create a more personalized experience. Some of the things it may do with the data collected about your apps include:
- Improving “who to follow” by suggesting other other people with similar interests.
- Including content in your timeline that Twitter believes you’ll find interesting, such as tweets, accounts, or other content.
- Showing you more relevant promoted content.
This may not sound like the worst thing in the world, but it’s understandable that you may not want Twitter to collect unnecessary data about you. You’ll know when this feature is activated because you’ll be promoted with a message notifying you: “to help tailor your experience, Twitter uses the apps on your device.”
If you have not seen this prompt it’s safe to assume the feature is turned off. If you do see the prompt, you can manually shut off the feature by following these steps:
On Android:
- Tap the overflow icon
- Tap Settings.
- Tap the account you’d like to adjust.
- Under Other, you can adjust the setting to Tailor Twitter based on my apps.
Using Twitter for iOS:
- From the Me tab, tap the gear icon
- Tap Settings.
- Tap the account you’d like to adjust.
- Under Privacy, you can adjust the setting to Tailor Twitter based on my apps.
Another way to prevent Twitter from collecting data about you, and displaying unwanted content in your feed, is to use a third party app as those features are only included on Twitter’s official app. Some of my personal favorites include Tweetbot for iOS and Talon for Android.
