Comments on: Private Twitter Accounts – What’s the Point?

By: Michael Carwile

Michael Carwile — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:35:00 +0000

Though I completely understand and agree with the annoyance of being harassed, it is not possible for someone to do so via DM unless you are following them (something you must intentionally do).

That said, I DO understand your point about not wanting to reveal information/comments to that particular person, but Twitter just isn’t the right place for that. Facebook has that kind of “privacy” built in. Twitter’s built on the idea of 1-way (but hoping for 2-way) communication. I can follow you without you following me or vice versa.

Perhaps “snob” is a bit harsh, I’ll grant that, but I still believe people that use private Twitter accounts aren’t really getting the point. There are other (better) services that have that kind of feature-set built-in; that is their foundation, even. That’s the point I’m trying to get across with this post.

All the same, thanks for your thoughts. You’ve softened me on my stance (if only slightly).

By: Michael Carwile

Michael Carwile — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Hey, thanks for your thoughts.

I understand the first part of your comment – using Twitter for a private group with people all over the globe certainly makes sense and even having the accounts be private makes sense.What I don’t understand is your comment about all the “noise”. Since you aren’t *required* to follow anyone on Twitter, the only noise you should ever deal with is from the people that you have intentionally followed. In terms of inbound noise, people pinging you with the @ username protocol, having a private account won’t solve this issue. Similarly, if you aren’t following someone, they are not able to send you a DM, either, so no issue there… Maybe you can elaborate what you mean by “noise”?I get your point about the private group, which is similar to my comment about work groups, but I don’t understand your other thoughts.

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:51:33 +0000

Yes, you’re completely off-base. I was harassed by DM by someone. I don’t like being harassed. Ergo, my account is private. I don’t want that person seeing anything I say or reading anything about me, but I enjoy interacting with my followers. If you have a problem with that, that’s really more your problem than it is mine – you are the one who is missing out on content you might be able to see if you simply sent a follow request. I think it’s ridiculous to assume people are just snobby. I can think of a LOT of different reasons why people might choose to make their accounts private.

By: justsaying

justsaying — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:53:29 +0000

my immediate family (local and overseas) have our own little private twitter network.
twitter allows the ones overseas to communicate with us over sms without the need for expensive data plans.
i once had a public account but got sick of all the “noise”.
accounts outside the ones really near and dear to me are now just in lists and i will check them only when i want to.
snob? maybe, but this is how i use it.

By: No. 152, 115, 336 « Thoughts in Random Access

No. 152, 115, 336 « Thoughts in Random Access — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:23:13 +0000

[...] again, the narcissistic side of me is tempted by the theoretical follower boon. Not to mention that this guy has some valid points for not using a protected [...]

By: Osornowork

Osornowork — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:25:00 +0000

Does anyone here know the statistics? how many people in twitter is going private?

By: Michael Carwile

Michael Carwile — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:06:00 +0000

Fair point. I think there are much better journaling tools available than Twitter provides via a private account, though. To each their own, but I personally wouldn’t use Twitter as a personal journal.

By: Tinyvox

Tinyvox — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 00:37:00 +0000

My goodness.

Would Edison put his mental processes on Twitter ?

Private notes to yourself are infinitely more valuable than ramblings to impress other users.

It is astonishing to me that people don’t see the value of keeping track of your day as you experience it. Privacy means you can be totally free to keep this log. This freedom means you’ll use it 100x more !!!!

By: Michael Carwile

Michael Carwile — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:49:10 +0000

Your comment made me laugh – I've done that more times than I can remember. I block people all the time, so I don't think it's bad. If it's obvious someone doesn't really want to connect with me and/or they are simply trying to promote some spamming product, I have no issue with blocking them. As far as I know, I haven't blocked anyone that I shouldn't have, hmm…

By: Sara Schneider

Sara Schneider — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:32:47 +0000

I just tweeted about this yesterday. Someone I didn't know, which a protected account, started following me. I couldn't figure out anything about her, or any reason to request permission to follow her back. What's the point? If you want to be private and keep in your own private network, fine, but why be private and still follow other people? I blocked her (and it felt good – is that bad?)