Twitter Can Collect Your Data Even If You Log Out And Delete The App
By Mac Slavo | SHTFplan | October 25, 2018
Twitter is able to track and collect your online activity data even if you have chosen to log out and delete their app. This is all thanks to an obscure and hidden setting that can only be disabled by accessing a particular page on Twitter’s website.
According to Breitbart, Twitter is likely still collecting your data if you have at any time, downloaded their app to your phone. This story was verified by Breitbart by testing Twitter’s data collection on an Apple iPhone, following a tip from banned conservative Twitter users @TheALX. Not only is Twitter neck deep in a censorship campaign, but once they’ve silenced a voice, they will continue to violate that former user’s privacy rights as well.
Even when Twitter’s app was deleted from the iPhone, and no Twitter account was logged in, when navigating to Twitter’s “Personalization and Data Settings” page via a browser, Breitbart discovered that data collection on the device was still enabled.
According to Twitter’s personalization page, all it takes is one login on a device to activate data collection across all devices until users discover the setting and switch it off. As the page explains, unless you switch off the setting, “Twitter will always personalize across the devices you’ve used to log in.” Not only that, Twitter’s personalization page goes on to explain that “Twitter mayt also link your Twitter account to other devices — ones you’ve never used to log on to Twitter — to help measure and improve your experience.” (emphasis Breitbart)
Twitter then responded to Breitbart’s request for comment on the issue of data collection.
Via a Twitter spokeswoman:
Data is only collected from people without Twitter accounts if and where there has been interaction with third-party sites that have Twitter content active on them (i.e., embedded Tweets, widgets, cookies, etc.). Individuals are provided with logged out privacy tools (per your screenshot) to help them determine which information is shared or not shared. -Twitter, via Breitbart
The personalization settings one must access to disable data collection are inaccessible via Twitter’s mobile app. To switch off data collection, you will still have to navigate to Twitter’s website via a browser and find the specific page before they can disable the data collection.
Twitter also collects your browsing data if you’ve never had an account if you’ve done so much as read an article with a tweet embedded. As Breitbart puts it:
In other words, as long as you’ve browsed websites that have embedded Tweets, Twitter cookies, or Twitter’s sharing widget, Twitter has your browsing data from that site. Considering that the vast majority of the top 50 U.S. websites (including pornography, payment processing, and banking websites) have some form of Twitter integration, this means that Twitter likely has a detailed profile one you even if you’ve never signed up for an account or used its platform.
Contributed by Mac Slavo of SHTFplan.com, where this article was originally published.
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