Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I actually tried retweeting Jackie’s comment - she’s spot on. Twitter is like a school yard sometimes - remember? there’s always the bully or group that think they have all the answers. For me the beauty of twitter is - you have the choice, privacy is everyone’s entitlement. Thanks for sharing Paul.

Thanks, Paul.

I have two accounts: A public one that is mostly work and industry-related, or for conversations with people I know through my work. The other one is private, for a small group of people I trust and want to have more personal conversations with.

Complaining about private Twitter accounts is like complaining that you can’t listen in on everyone’s phone calls. Why would anyone care so much? It’s puzzling.

Like Jackie, I also have two Twitter accounts: one - when I joined Twitter almost three years ago - which is limited to close friends only; and the other, a public one, which I use for open conversations.

I enjoy using both accounts, and use them for very different reasons; I’ve no reason to make my ‘private’ one public anytime soon.

Indeed. Whose business is it other than Jackie’s? Everyone applies their own preferences to their use of communications technology. Even mobile phone use has options: Do you answer the phone if the number is blocked? Do you enable voicemail?

My own twitter ’strategy’, as I only want to have relationships with people where I believe there’s benefit on both sides, is to block people who have followed me that I don’t want to follow back. Many people would consider that weird. But whose business is it other than mine?

Tom Raftery has an interesting / funny comment on this topic
http://twitter.com/TomRaftery/status/4175497283

(Yes, I realise I just used another persons tweet)

I saw some people tweeting and retweeting comments about public vs private twitter accounts yesterday and was wondering what they were all yabbering on about ..

Now I know

Personally I see it this way.

If I, as an individual, want to have a private / protected Twitter account, then it is my choice and my choice alone. If that choice has negative impact on me, then that’s my problem. Ultimately it’s my choice.

However, if a company were to have a private Twitter a/c I’d wonder what they were playing at

Ultimately it’s about choice.

It’s like the stupid arguments about full RSS feeds vs short ones. Some people seem to think that they are right, because nobody will stand up to them and remind them that they aren’t always right

Regards

Michele

I think it’s fine - the only comment I’d make is that Twitter’s usability in this matter sucks. There’s no way for a protected user to get another user to connect to them.

Assuming Zoe decides to follow me from her protected account - when I click to see who the user is, I see nothing. If the private account @s me, again, I don’t see it.

Perhaps Twitter should work a bit like Facebook in this respect. If your protected account follows me, I should be able to see your tweets (for a limited period) to see if I want to follow back. If you @ me, I should see that tweet.

But, no, there’s nothing wrong with keeping your account private if that’s what you want to do. You just need to be aware of the limitations.

@Terence I’m not sure I agree. If Zoe decides to @ you (i.e talk about you and not to you) it’s considered to be a private conversation between her and her friends. By that token, you could argue that Twitter is closer to how you operate in the real world as it respects your privacy.

Facebook is just copying Twitter in any way it can right now - playing catchup.

@Eamon I bet some guys like to do just that. It’s not for us to judge if some guys want a ‘posh wa*k’.

@Michele I wasn’t sure where all of this started - perhaps it started with Tom. I wonder if he’ll notice this post and care to comment. I respect his opinion, which demonstrates my point - it’s opinion.

Personally I don’t see much point in protected updates for a few (related) reasons.

1. twitter and web2.0 is about sharing, if you want a private conversion with your friends there are probably better platforms that twitter to do it on, specifically:
2. On twitter even if you protect your updates your friends can always retweet them. So not very protected then.
3. I have the opinion that if it’s on the Internet in clear text it’s effectively public anyway.
4. If it’s confidential, why are you posting it? If it isn’t confidential why do you care about privacy?
5. We didn’t have protected blogs and noone seemed to complain about that. Twitter is micro blogging.

No problem with people protecting their tweets if that’s what they want to do, I just can’t see a lot of point really. If you lived alone and lots of people knew where you lived you might not want to advertise to prospective burglars that you are out though.

Might be better if you had actual privacy controls on tweets so if you wanted to post the 40% of stuff on twitter which is meaningless drivel such as “good morning” “had cornflakes for breakfast” “watching x-factor” etc then you can make these optionally public but keep the rest private.

@Craig your definition of what Twitter is, is your opinion. Twitter was actually invented to help people communicate. I’ve had the benefit of having dinner with Jack (the original founder). His background is emergency notification systems. So, Twitter in his mind, is the communication tool used throughout conversations.

When Twitter first launched, it was anything but a micro blogging tool. In fact, when I tweeted it was turning into a conversation tool, some said I was mad - back in the day when it was used as a one-way broadcast tool.

I hate to use the term, but what about intranets? They’re private and not on the open Web - yet, reside on the Internet. What about Facebook private groups? You’re right in that anyone can republish what’s supposed to be private - but that’s down to the trust you hold with your friends. It’s a bit like having a private conversation with your friend in a shopping center - by your argument, it’s not private because they’re talking in a public place.

I was with twitter from the start and always had my updates open to all and met and engaged with quite a few people and gradually built up several relationships.

However since twitter has become so crowded it is also filled with what the population lovingly refer to as 4channers.

At the height of the twitter frenzy I was attacked so brutally, and my website thrashed with over 300 derogatory comments on one post within five minutes, I decided to shut down my profile and I culled all of my followers except for those I actually accumulated from the beginning. Now I am very selective and engage genuinely with the people I follow.

For me, watching twitter evolve, it’s been sad in a way, but the option to lock and block keeps it close to what twitter was when it began, and I can still market my sites and links which are re-tweeted out by my followers, so in that sense, it is still as effective as it ever was in those terms for me.

Carry on.

Kathy

Paul, I actually with with Terence on this. If I wanted to talk about -and not TO- him with my friends on my private Twitter account, then I wouldn’t use an @. One of the reasons I opened a public account was because I was wanting to converse with people who I followed, but whom I did not wish to read my private account’s tweets, and I realised that I needed to offer up access to them in order to maintain a two-way conversation.

I’ve found it far more useful, in terms of communicating, having a public twitter, and the multiple-user conversations are very valuable. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy my private twitter - that’s where I bitch and moan (more than usual ) about things, and have the freedom to express myself because it’s in a trusted environment. But I really do think that Terence’s suggestion of temporary viewing access to private accounts if the user @ replies someone who isn’t following them would be a good thing.

Craig, many people wish not to have their tweets visible to certain others. Blocking is useless - the people you’ve blocked can still see your tweets simply by logging out (but even that is not necessary).

In the beginning, Twitter felt safe and fun - an online sanctuary of sorts. For some of us, it lost that feeling. By keeping my personal tweets private and limiting the number of followers to those I trust, I have regained that feeling of intimacy, safety, and fun. You don’t need to share that feeling in order for it to be valid in other people.

@Zoe - you are correct. I didn’t actually have the ‘@’ feature in mind. I was referring to when you want to talk about people in private - some will use the @ but it’s not necessary and probably not wise.