Twitter, data protection and the GDPR: This combination should theoretically provide users with more clarity about the information that the platform stores. But: What does your own Twitter data really reveal? Are they helpful? A commentary analysis.
The General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR for short – is an annoying phenomenon for the vast majority of companies and their marketing and public relations departments. After all, since the GDPR came into force on May 25, 2018, data protection has been tightened in Germany and Europe.
Ultimately pursued GDPR Put simply, the aim is to better protect the personal data of (private) individuals. On the one hand, this is intended to prevent and punish the misuse of data.
On the other hand, more transparency should be created. This means that users of digital platforms should be able to find out what happens to their personal data in a simple, understandable and uncomplicated way – and then be given the option of also deleting this collected data.
Twitter, data protection and GDPR: The transparency promise
Of course, the GDPR also applies to Twitter – so data protection has also been high on the agenda for the short message service for at least four years.
And so Twitter, like (almost) all social networks and digital (communication) platforms, offers the possibility of downloading the collected personal data in an archive. (We have written detailed instructions for you.)
At first glance, the promise sounds tempting. This is what it says in the settings:
You can download a ZIP file containing an archive of your account information, account history, apps and devices, account activity, interests, and advertising data.
In fact, downloading your own Twitter data is uncomplicated. The personal information is available in less than 24 hours.
Twitter Privacy: What’s Your Twitter Data Really Telling You?
But for the majority of Twitter users, the understandable part of the communication ends with the receipt of the ZIP file. If you follow the link, you will land on a smartly designed Twitter page. There is a small overview of the statistics:
- number of tweets
- Likes
- Blocked Accounts
- Muted Accounts
- Listen
- moments
For all further information it is now necessary to dive into the folder. But anyone expecting Word files and comprehensible texts and overviews will be bitterly disappointed.
A snippet from a Twitter archive.
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Most of your Twitter data is stored as a Javascript file. There is a readme file that helps analyze the data. However, most technical laypeople should already get out at this point, which actually reduces the requirements of the GDPR to absurdity.
Twitter data: For developers – and frustrated users
Of course, with a little time and effort, some interesting information can be found in the files. For example, in the ad impressions file, Twitter lists all the ads that have been shown to you in your news feed – and why they have appeared there.
For example, we learn that I saw a Promoted Tweet from Gorillas, the 10-minute delivery service. This coincided with my (alleged) interests in soccer, cooking and gaming news.
I saw the ad on June 2, 2022 at 8:39 p.m. on an iPhone 11 running iOS in my home feed. So far so good.
However, the form of presentation is neither simple, nor does Twitter give the impression that the platform has a great interest in transporting the collected data transparently for the average user.
Twitter: Privacy? No thank you!
The conclusion of the analysis of my Twitter data is correspondingly sobering. If you take a few hours and have a certain level of technical understanding, you can certainly discover one or the other interesting information when rummaging through Javascript files.
