If you’ve logged into Twitter in the past few days you may have noticed some changes, most notably the addition of the new Twitter Activity Stream.
At first glance my thought was, “Cool, I can see who the people I follow have followed and can more easily follow new people”. In addition, I can see what tweets the people that I’m following have favorited, which is also another great way to keep tabs on potentially relevant information.
But as I thought more about this I began to wonder if this was such a good idea. Do the benefits outweigh the potential downfalls, specifically in regards to privacy.
One reason I prefer Twitter over Facebook is the fact that it takes a little more effort to stalk someone (yes, stalkers are a concern of mine, especially for my children…thank you newscasters!). Sure, I can go through individual’s timeline’s, check their public lists, view their favorite tweets and see who they’re following & who is following them, but now I don’t have to. I have the activity stream!
For my own personal and business Twitter accounts I don’t have an issue with the Twitter activity stream, but then again, I’m pretty cautious and intentional with what I post. But many people that I know are not and that concerns me.
My proposal would be for Twitter to have an option for people to opt out of their activity being shown (beyond having a completely private Twitter account). And the default of this option should be to turn it off unless someone specifically turns it on for their account.
What do you think?