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Social media has become an essential part of 3.8 billion people’s daily lives around the world, a number which has grown 9.2% in the past year alone. Supported by internet connectivity at home, work and while on-the-move, social media is a mainstream channel of communication; connecting people, sharing content and instantaneous reaction and interaction.

In Thailand, 75% of the population (52 million people) are active social media users, up 4.7% year-on-year, and with improving internet access and smartphone penetration, 99% of Thais access social media on their mobile phone. As we celebrate the eleventh anniversary of Social Media Day on 30 June, here are some features that are at everyone’s fingertips to ensure you have full control over your Twitter experience.

1. Set up your Twitter account the way YOU want it
Whether you’re new to Twitter or are a long-time user, people may overlook some of the controls that everyone on Twitter has over their own account. In the settings section, there are a variety of options that allow people to decide for themselves on what personal information you show, what you share with others, and what you may wish to keep private.

Profile visibility settings: Most of the profile information you provide to Twitter is public, like your biography, location, website, and picture. However, users are given visibility settings to select who on Twitter can see certain pieces of information in your profile.

Location services: You can either choose to share your location on Twitter or keep it private. Your location is set to private by default, but this is adjustable anytime. You can also delete your past locations from being displayed in old Tweets.

Email and phone discoverability: You can control whether you can be found on Twitter by using your email address or phone number, by adjusting discoverability privacy settings. If the settings that allow others to find you by your email address or phone number are turned off, your address-book contacts (if you have chosen to upload them) will not be used by Twitter to suggest your account to others.

Disable Receive Direct Message setting: You can prevent accounts that you do not follow from direct messaging you by disabling the Receive Direct Message setting. It’s important to note that disabling this setting does not stop messaging from accounts with which you have previously had conversations, but do not follow.

Adjust the Tweet order in your timeline: You can choose between viewing the top Tweets first or the latest Tweets first, and you can toggle between the two anytime by going to Content Preferences under settings.

2. You can control what you ‘see’ on Twitter

With millions of Tweets sent everyday all over the world, Twitter may be a daunting place for newcomers. However, it doesn’t have to be as Twitter provides a wide range of tools to ensure everyone can customise their experience on Twitter and only see what is of interest to them, and engage and communicate only with people they wish to engage with.

Unfollow: If you want to stop seeing a particular account’s Tweets in your home timeline, you can unfollow the account. You can still view the Tweets on an as-needed basis by visiting their profile, as long as their Tweets are not protected. It’s worth noting that when you unfollow someone it doesn’t stop them from being able to contact you, see your Tweets, or follow you.

Mute: Using the Mute function, you can remove an account’s Tweets from your timeline without unfollowing or blocking it. You can also use Advanced Mute for particular words, conversations, phrases, usernames, emojis, or hashtags.

Filtered notifications: You can apply different filters on the types of notifications you receive. Quality filter, when turned on, removes lower-quality content from your notifications, such as duplicate or potentially ‘spammy’ Tweets. Mute Notifications allows you to mute phrases and words you’d like to avoid seeing in your notifications. Advanced Filters allows you to disable notifications from certain types of accounts or in certain time periods – for example, if your account is receiving a lot of sudden attention.

3. You can also control what others see of you on Twitter

Not everything you Tweet has to be public. Twitter allows everyone to choose who sees their Tweets, who can tag you in photos and more. Try some of these features to personalise the experience.
Block: You can stop specific accounts from contacting you, seeing your Tweets, or following you, and if you use the Advanced Block feature you can export your list of blocked accounts to share with another person and import someone else’s list of blocked accounts.

Photo tagging: You can choose who can tag you in photos on Twitter: no one, only your followers, or anyone.

Protected Tweets: When you first create your Twitter account, your Tweets are public by default, which means that anyone can view and interact with them. If you protect your Tweets, this makes your account private and other Twitter users will have to send you a request if they want to follow you.

Note: accounts that began following you before you protected your Tweets will still be able to view and interact with your protected Tweets unless you block them.

For information on the latest safety tools, resources and updates, follow ‎@TwitterSafety‎. And for the latest on privacy, check out Twitter’s Privacy Policy or the Twitter Help Centre