Twitter's data breach, UI customization, and more

Twitter revealed that they may have shared your data with advertisers; additionally the platform is testing and rolling-out new features on mobile and desktop.

Notifications

Twitter is testing a new feature that would let you turn on notifications for a specific tweet that you might find interesting and want to keep a track of. When you click on a tweet, you'd see a bell icon on the top right corner of the tweet, by clicking on it you can set customized notifications. For instance, if you select 'Top', you'd be notified when you get interesting replies from the author, mentioned or people you follow; selecting 'All' will get you notified with every new reply. The tests are live on iOS and Android currently.

UI Customization

Twitter has rolled out a new desktop experience. In the last update of the desktop interface the tabs Home, Moments, Notifications & Messages were moved to a vertical section in the left part of the layout with new additional tabs like Bookmarks, Lists, Profile and More. The ‘Tweet’ button had also been moved below this section from the top-right corner and the 'Trends' section had been moved to the right.

In the new update, placements of tabs have not been moved but the engineers have played with a few different aspects. The appearance is customizable in terms of font size options, colors, and two dark mode palettes into the site. The new desktop experience would let you adjust display controls to change your information density and also play with preferred colours. The new experience also includes two dark modes.

You can customize your experience by clicking on the More menu in the navigation and selecting “Display” or by navigating to Settings > Display.

Also Read: Twitter tests icons for threads; to provide more context on hidden tweets

Twitter ends third-party integrations for ad-targeting

Reportedly, Twitter will be cutting ties with the third-parties that provide data to advertisers on the platform for ad-targeting. The platform plans to terminate the integration early next year and requires advertisers to buy data on their own and they would need an approval on the data sources that marketers choose by Twitter.

The platform currently partners with a flock of data providers that offer insights for effective targeting. Advertisers on the platform might face repercussions of this move.

Twitter may have shared your data with advertisers

Twitter revealed, if you clicked or viewed an advertisement for a mobile application and interacted with the mobile application since May 2018, they may have shared certain data (e.g., country code, if you engaged with the ad and when, information about the ad, etc) with measurement and advertising partners, even if you didn't give them permission to do so.

And Twitter may have used this information to show you ads based on these inferences about the devices you use even if you did not give them the permission to do so.

The platform claims, "the data involved stayed within Twitter and did not contain things like passwords, email accounts, etc." and "these issues were fixed on August 5, 2019."