10 Ways People Use Twitter to Spy on Others

Social networking websites like Twitter have proven to be powerful and popular communication tools. Members can share information and opinions around the world in a matter of seconds. Their ability to inform, mobilize and entertain us is unquestioned. There are those who have other motives, however. For instance, here are ten ways that people use Twitter to spy on others:

1. Reading Tweets – Straightforward and obvious, this method elicits enough information from a person’s profile most of the time to make spying on them a moot point. It’s surprising how much one can learn about someone else just 140 characters at a time, when following their tweets.
2. Follow Them – Unlike other social media such as Facebook, it’s not necessary to establish a reciprocal relationship in order to follow someone. Anyone can keep tabs on you just by opting to do so, with or without your consent or return gesture.
3. Following Their Followers – it’s often possible to fill in the blanks that a member’s tweets may have, by reading their friends’ tweets, and following them as well. It helps flesh out the overall picture for someone seeking to gather information about a user.
4. RSS Feed – Apps are abundant which allow you to add a Twitter feed to your desktop or website. This essentially gives a tracking device to a person who wishes to spy on another user. They will get a notification every time that person posts an update.
5. Hash Tags – Hash tags are a means by which users have categorized their tweets to facilitate a search on specific topics. They have since been misused and abused, but they still provide a good tracking tool for finding tweets related to a given topic, name or phrase.

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