Like all social media platforms, Twitter provides users with different layers of privacy when it comes to their personal profiles.
While Facebook goes in depth with their privacy settings, Twitter keeps it nice and simple and offers its users two options – a private account or a public account.
So, what do you do if you stumble across ‘protected’ tweets while browsing the app? It may be gaining a lot of attention from your followers and you really want to engage with it.
We’re going to look at how to go about accessing protected tweets without following the user’s protected profile, and whether this is even possible.
View protected tweets – The easiest way
If you have a private twitter account then your tweets can only be accessed by those who follow you.
In comparison, those with a public twitter account are aware that everyone on the app can view their tweets, likes and follower/following information.
So, if you have a private account on Twitter then only your followers can see your tweets.
In order to gain followers, private users have to accept follow requests, much in the same way Facebook users have to accept friend requests to connect to others.
With that in mind, the easiest way to view protected tweets is to simply request to follow the user who has the protected tweets.
Once the Twitter user in question has approved your follow request, you will be able to see all of their protected tweets.
To complete this process, please take these steps on either the Twitter app or Twitter for web:
- Log in to your Twitter account.
- Locate the account that you wish to follow.
- Select the ‘follow’ button on the upper right hand side of their profile. This will send them a follow request.
- Wait for them to accept or reject your request.
Although you won’t be able to retweet the content from protected tweets, you will be able to view, like and respond to them.
Third party tools generally don’t work for viewing protected tweets. The only other alternative you can try is to use Archive.org to see a user’s profile how it was presented in the past.
If the profile was previously not on private, you’ll be able to see their cached tweets by using the Wayback machine. The more popular the profile, the more it’ll be cached – here’s an example.
Other methods to view protected methods
If you don’t want to to request to follow a private account on your own personal account then there is one other option available to you.
Although there is no third party website out there that will ‘unhide’ protected tweets (and if you do come across any that say they do then don’t visit them as it’ll be a scam), you are able to create additional anonymous Twitter accounts and try your luck requesting to follow them on one of them.
In order to create an additional Twitter account, please follow these steps:
- Visit the Twitter website via a web browser.
- Select the ‘sign up’ button on the home screen.
- Enter in all the relevant information for the new account and complete the sign up.
It is worth noting that you will need a legitimate email address and/or phone number to register a new account on Twitter.
You won’t be able to just make them up as you will need to verify your account by text message or email.
Once you have signed up for a new account and verified it, you will be free to log in to it and request to follow the account who protected tweets you wish to view.
Changing your privacy settings on Twitter
If the idea of having ‘protected’ tweets appeals to you then the process of changing your account settings to make this possible is very straightforward.
You are able to do this via Twitter for web or the mobile phone app, with the new settings being set in stone going forward regardless of which version of Twitter you prefer to use.
To change your privacy settings on Twitter for web, please follow the steps below:
- First, sign into your Twitter account.
- Find the bottom of the menu bar, and click the three dotted icon on the left.
- Choose “Settings and Privacy” first, then select “Privacy and Safety”.
- Hit the “Audience and tagging” button, then make sure to toggle the “Protect your tweets” box to on.
- Click “protect” to confirm your choice.
The process for changing your privacy settings on the mobile phone app is very similar, with the only real difference being the fact that you won’t have to confirm you decision once you’ve ticked the ‘protect your tweets’ box.
Conclusion
To conclude, there is only really one way to gain access to protected tweets on Twitter and that is to request to follow the user whose protected tweets you wish to see.
You will have to wait for them to accept your follow request and if they choose to decline then tough, you just won’t be able to see their tweets.
It can be worth it to follow the best Twitter accounts on the platform, though usually they’ll have their tweets as public and not private.
