Twitter 'privacy check-in' to let you hide account from searches

Twitter logo. Pic/AFP

Twitter has shared couple of new ideas around maintaining user privacy and a 'privacy check-in' feature would allow people to remain more secure on the platform, including a way to hide their accounts from searches if they are being harassed.

Twitter's 'privacy check-in' feature would take users through a series of questions that help them think about how public or private they want to be on the platform.

"For example, they could choose whether everyone can see their tweets or not, who's allowed to send them direct messages, or who can tag them in photos," reports TechCrunch.

According to Lena Emara, People Experience Designer at Twitter, privacy is one of those things everyone wants, but it's not a one-size-fits-all.

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"Very early concepts in Threadare ways I'm exploring to make Twitter healthier. These are just ideas and not being built (yet?), so your feedback is helpful!," she said in a tweet late on Tuesday.

"We've found lots of people don't know about all the conversation control and discoverability settings available to them -- so how about a check-in that lets you pick among various groups of settings depending on your needs?" Emara added.

Right now, people can control how others find them using their phone or email.

A new Twitter concept lets you "Get notified if accounts search for your username, choose if you want to be found that way and set a time limit for it".

Another option is making your account hidden from harassers.

"Users could be alerted to the increase in negative attention their account was receiving through a push notification and then be pointed to new privacy controls that would let them disable the ability for other Twitter users to find them through search," the report said.

Emara said: "After being harassed by people searching for their name, they get the notification ‘Want help limiting negative interactions? We locked 5 accounts for breaking our rules after searching your username. Want to change how people find you?'

"Once they open up the notification, they can change their discoverability settings ‘Control how people find you on Twitter.' 2 options "Let people find you by searching your username. This makes it easy for people to follow you," she noted.

These are still early ideas, said Twitter.

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