You can remain anonymous on Twitter™ by using an anonymous online microblogging service, setting up a proxy Internet connection, disabling the geolocation tool in Twitter™, and masking your Internet Protocol address ( IP). Using Twitter™ without your real name or email address is also an important step in staying anonymous online. Tweeting advice about your location, career, or personal life is also generally not recommended if you wish to remain anonymous. Creating this type of separate online identity is often considered a good practice to maintain a certain level of security on Twitter™, and the same steps can be applied to other online social platforms as well.
Using a dictionary or encyclopedia can help create a unique, unidentifiable username.
Before creating your account as an anonymous user, choose a unique nickname. This step usually requires some planning, as you typically don’t want to choose a nickname that gives away potential clues about your age, gender, occupation, interests, or views on topics like politics. Other users who are determined to discover your identity can often piece together a surprisingly complete picture of you from this little piece of information. Some users who wish to remain anonymous on the Internet use a made-up word for the nickname, such as one with a prefix and suffix that are not normally put together in the standard language. Dictionaries and thesauri can be good sources of ideas for this option.
Using an anonymous encrypted email account will help maintain security and prevent a user from being identified.
You will also need a separate email address to remain anonymous on Twitter™. A variety of online services offer free anonymous email accounts that are encrypted to prevent intruders from reading messages, and many of these services also delete records of messages sent and received. Many of these email accounts are free, just like standard web email. Some offer temporary email addresses that expire after a certain number of days, while others are permanent. Using a permanent anonymous email address to sign in to your Twitter™ account can prevent potential login issues that can occur with some temporarily expired email addresses.
A proxy Internet connection prevents other users from seeing any of your web traffic, including your tweets, posts, and email messages. This security option can be enabled in all major web browsers by selecting some specific connection settings in the browser’s tools menus. Step-by-step instructions for this type of setup can usually be found in the help section of your browser company’s website.
If you plan to tweet from your cell phone or laptop while you’re away from home, microblogging is another way to ensure you remain anonymous. Several microblogging services connect to Twitter™ and allow you to post without your location or email address being identified. When subscribing to one of these services, be sure to disable all geolocation options on the microblogging platform and on your regular account.
An online proxy server allows Internet users a degree of anonymity.
