Your kid may be entering the social media scene in a few more years. Or else, they might be at a point when they are about to enter it. However, it has a lot of meanings. They can become a part of an online community, learn from others, and even explore new things.
Your job as a parent here is to ensure their online safety while they do all of it. Now, if your kid has a Twitter account, and you don't have one, there are some things you must know about the app. So, here is all that parents should learn about their child's privacy settings on Twitter.
How does it work?
Like almost all social media platforms, users can quickly and easily interact on Twitter through tweets. You can post short texts on the platform. As of now, Twitter allows 280 characters per tweet. So, users have to try to make it understandable and relatable within the character limit.
What is different about Twitter is that users have a lot of control over the content they wish to see. They can choose which brands to follow and even which celebrities, family members, friends, or strangers to follow. However, if your child follows a person, they can see their retweets. So, if they retweet someone else's tweet, your child can gain exposure to many accounts from there.
Not only that but there are many chances that your child can come across misunderstandings and misinformation. Not everybody is honest on Twitter. But, Twitter has taken steps to protect its users from coming across such information. Yet, it will be best if you talk to your child about how they should not quickly believe and arrive at a conclusion after seeing something on Twitter.
Is Twitter safe for your children?
If your child is using Twitter, you need to make sure that you don't become unfamiliar with how they are using it. You must have regular and constant talks with them about their online safety. You also need to monitor their account regularly. Here are some things about Twitter and its privacy settings that you should probably know.
You can't control who follows you.
You can control who follows you on other apps, but not on Twitter because it is more of an open platform. So, if your child is on Twitter, he or she won't always be familiar with the followers. The only way to be able to control your Twitter follower list is by making your profile private. After that, you can personally check and accept a follower. Most teenagers don't do it, but you should ask your child to do so to ensure safety.
Retweeting can lead to cyberbullying.
A retweet is when a person shares a tweet by a different person on their account. People usually do it when they find it relatable. Retweeting also means that the retweet can go viral. Many people can see it all over the world.
Not only that, but people can also comment what they wish on your child's retweet. Unfortunately, when people comment on retweets, it is not always nice. These comments can be rude and disturbing to read. The content that you post is immediately visible, and taking it down might be difficult.
Tweets are automatically public.
When your child creates an account on Twitter, the account is public by default. It will only change to private if your child changes it manually. It means that any user can see who your child follows, who follows your child, what your child posts, and many similar things unless your child manually changes the settings.
Location revealing is unsafe.
Location services let your child check in to a place and share their location publicly to let their friends know where they are. It is not the best thing to do because a stranger or a stalker can take advantage of it to approach them. So, you have to ensure that your children turn off these settings while using their accounts.
Users can send texts on Twitter.
Private messaging is possible on Twitter, and not only that, but it is also a substantial part of the platform. So, if someone wants to bully, make fun of, or even groom someone, they can do it via direct messaging. Direct messaging also offers privacy. To make sure that it doesn't happen, your child has to adjust the direct message settings of their Twitter account. Strangers won't be able to contact them after that.
Subtweeting.
It refers to tweeting about someone or something in a negative manner without mentioning them directly by the name. It might look harmless, but it is not harmless. In fact, it can lead to the victim coming under a great deal of stress. It often leads to cyberbullying, and it doesn't turn out to be good for the victim. If in case your child is experiencing it, it will be best to mute the negative words and hashtags and even block such accounts.
How to protect your children from cyberbullying on Twitter?
Clear conversation and educating them about the dangers on social media sites are a must. Apart from that, getting a parental control tool like Avosmart will always help. It lets you keep track of their Twitter activities. If you think that they are following a channel that seems to be unsuitable for them, you can also block it with Avosmart.