Twitter Refreshes Privacy Policy Approach Through Simplification and Gamification
The platform updates its approach to drive awareness and understanding of its policies.
Twitter unveiled fresh elements designed to make the platform’s privacy practices simple and approachable, encouraging more people around the world to take charge of their personal information on the service. These elements include:
- A reimagined privacy policy and privacy site: rewritten with easy-to-understand language.
- Twitter Data Dash: a new privacy video game to teach people about Twitter's privacy policies in a fun and engaging format.
- Research into privacy icons: for privacy settings and controls recognizable on Twitter and elsewhere globally.
Since Twitter’s last privacy policy and terms of service update, the platform has thought about how to make its privacy policy as simple and approachable as possible, engaging with people on the platform for feedback on how they can improve.
Privacy policy and privacy site
It shouldn’t take a law degree to understand privacy policies, so Twitter has rewritten it to try and make it useful - emphasizing clear language and moving away from legal jargon. Beginning May 12, people will be able to see the updates to the privacy policy and terms of service in the app via settings and on Twitter’s redesigned privacy policy site.
Changes include:
- A rewritten tone with less “legalese” and more easily understood language.
- A new organization into three primary sections: data collection, data use, and data sharing.
- An expanded scope of reference to content on Twitter beyond just tweets, accounting for the increasingly rich media found on Twitter.
- A clearer explanation about personalization of the Twitter experience and the ads people see.
Additionally, the revamped format of the privacy policy site includes direct answers to commonly asked questions about how data is collected and used. Takeaways at the top of each section of the site are now more easily read and new illustrations bring the privacy policy to life.
Twitter Data Dash
Twitter Data Dash is the platform’s new privacy policy video game. Twitter Data Dash guides people through some of the more complicated concepts of the privacy policy, helping them learn how to safely navigate the Twitterverse and discover the tools that put them in the driver’s seat when it comes to their data.
Through Twitter Data Dash, Twitter is introducing a fun and interactive way to learn about a topic that has historically been anything but. The game aims to encourage more people around the world to take charge of their personal information on the service and maybe even have a little fun in the process. Transparency is core to the platform’s approach and it wants to help people understand the information it collects, how the information is used, and the controls at people’s disposal.
What’s next? Privacy iconography
Twitter is working on reimagined privacy iconography - visual symbols that represent core settings related to security and privacy across the service. Like the magnifying glass is a widely recognized icon indicating a search function, the platform’s goal is to propose standardized privacy icons for privacy settings and controls recognizable on Twitter and elsewhere globally. Through research and conversations with stakeholders, Twitter learned that those who have used or seen the privacy settings feel more in control of their privacy on Twitter and that there was more that could be done to make settings and controls easier to understand. The team has been ideating and conducting research into privacy iconography and plans to publish its findings and ideas soon.
The new privacy policy, redesigned site, and Twitter Data Dash are available in nine languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian.
