What Is Twitter?
Twitter is a social media platform that is used by millions around the globe. Users “tweet” out messages of up to 280 characters and interact with others by retweeting or replying to other tweets. Twitter users can tweet text, links, polls, GIFS, photos, and videos. In comparison with other social media platforms, it is more commonly used by celebrities, brands, news outlets, and public figures. However, teens like the platform as a way to tweet out what’s on their mind.
Twitter Parental Controls
Twitter does have a required age of 13 for users in its terms of service. However, there are still a lot of young users with accounts on the social media platform. There are certain measures parents can take on Twitter to make it more suitable for teens who want to have an account.
Turn Off Direct Messages
Users on Twitter can send private messages to other users. Parents can help protect their child’s account by restricting the direct messages to users that they follow. Go to Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Select Direct Messages. Then, you can adjust who can message your child’s account.
Set Their Account To Private
One of the other things that can be done to help make an account safer is making the account Private so that only users following the account can see its activity. To make an account private select, go to Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Select Audience and tagging → Press the toggle button next to Protect your Tweets.
Photo Tagging
To limit the people that can tag your child’s account in a photo, go to Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Select Audience and tagging → Photo Tagging. Either turn off photo tagging entirely or set it so that only users that follow your child can tag them.
Video Auto Play
Making it so that videos that show up in a user’s feed will not play automatically can help protect the account from watching inappropriate videos on their feed. To adjust this setting go to Settings and privacy → Data Usage → AutoPlay. Now select Never.
Mute & Block Accounts
If someone is harassing your child or you don’t want them to see an account’s content, you block or mute an account. Muting an account will ensure that your child doesn’t see their content in their timeline and won’t receive notifications. To block or mute someone on Twitter, navigate to their profile, click on the three horizontal dots, and select “Mute @(handle)” or “Block @(handle)”.
Hide Sensitive Content
One of the main concerns parents have with children using social media is having them see content they shouldn’t. To prevent this from happening, go to Settings and privacy → Privacy and safety → Content your see → Search settings → Make sure Hide sensitive content is checked off.
Keeping Kids Safe On Twitter
Twitter is not recommended for users that are under the age of 13 to help protect younger kids from the dangers that social media poses. Thankfully, there are also built-in settings that parents can use to help protect their teens that are using a Twitter account. These settings help make an account safer for kids and bring parents one step closer to ensuring their child’s online safety.