How to minimise targeted ads on social media: Twitter

Last modified
11th November 2021
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Twitter plays an increasingly important role as a space facilitating democratic engagement, debate and dissent. However, Twitter's track record in relation to protecting people's data has in some instances fallen short of expectations. In August 2019, for example, Twitter revealed that it had shared with advertisers the data of users who had opted-out of personalised ads. More recently, Twitter admitted that data which had been given by users for safety security purposes had been "inadvertently" used for advertising purposes.

Here's how you can minimise ad targeting by Twitter. 

1. Go to twitter.com and log in

2. Navigate to Settings and Privacy

3. Click on Privacy and Safety

4. Scroll down to "Data sharing and off-Twitter activity". Click on "Ads preferences"

5. Untick box next to "Personalised ads"

(You can also see and remove the the inferred categories Twitter put you in. To do so, click on “Interests”.)

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