Tools

It’s important that you know how to manage your Twitter profile. Start with these steps:

• Protected Tweets: if you want to control who sees your updates, you may choose to protect your Tweets. Accounts with protected Tweets require manual approval of each and every person who wants to view that account’s Tweets. Only approved followers are able to view or search for Tweets from protected accounts. Learn how to protect your Tweets here.
• Photo Tagging: this feature allows others to tag you in photos on Twitter. Photo tagging is a great way to stay connected, but if you’d prefer a more private experience, you can easily change your photo tag settings. We provide three options: (1) allow anyone to tag you, (2) allow only followers to tag you, or (3) allow no one to tag you. Learn how to manage your photo tagging settings here.
• Would you like to be discovered? We allow your friends to find you on Twitter by using your email address or phone number. However, if you’d prefer not to be discovered, you can deactivate this feature by changing your settings.
• Location tips: your Tweet location is switched off by default, but some users enable location services because they want to add a location (such as a city or neighborhood) to their Tweets. This is up to you. Learn how to include or stop including your location in your Tweets here.
• Direct messages: these are private messages on Twitter. You can choose to receive Messages from anyone or just from those you follow. Visit your security and privacy settings page to change your preferences.

At times, you may encounter content you don’t want to see on Twitter. Here are few suggestions for what to do when this happens:

• Mute: you can hide a user’s Tweets from your timeline without blocking them by using the mute function. A red mute icon visible only to you will appear on their profile and remain until you unmute them. Most importantly, when you mute someone, they won’t know you’ve muted them. You will still receive notifications when they mention you in Tweets and send you Direct Messages. You can also mute users you don’t follow to exclude their Tweets from your notifications timeline. Muting is different than blocking or unfollowing: users can’t tell whether you’ve muted them. Learn more about mute here.
• Block: prevent an account from following or seeing you on Twitter with the block function. When you block an account, you won’t see its Tweets, and the account won’t be able to follow you or see your Tweets (unless the account logs out). When you block someone, it fully tunes them out — even if they continue to mention you. Block stops a user from following you, tagging you in photos, or accessing your Tweets. Any replies or mentions from a blocked user won’t appear in your mentions tab (although these Tweets may still appear in search). It can be an effective way to handle unwanted interactions from accounts you don’t want to engage with. Blocked users can see that you have blocked their accounts when they visit your profile. Learn more about block here.
• Control what you see in Tweets: your account settings include Tweet media options that let you place a warning over media in Tweets that may contain sensitive content. By default, Twitter will provide a warning, but you can change the setting at any time. Learn more about media settings here.

You can report accounts that are harassing, bullying, or threatening you or someone else, especially if block and mute don’t fix the issue. We’ll investigate and determine the appropriate response. If you feel you’re in immediate danger, please contact local law enforcement.

If you work with law enforcement, it’s important to:

• document the violent or abusive messages with printouts or screenshots.
• be as specific as possible about why you’re concerned.
• provide any context you have around who you believe might be involved, such as evidence of abusive behavior from other websites.
• provide any information regarding previous threats you may have received.