Twitter reveals users’ location without consent

SAN FRANCISCO: Micro-blogging site Twitter HAS ADMITTED that SPECIIC locations included with some of its users’ tweets were revealed without their permission last week due to a “bug.”

“We’ve discovered an issue for a small percentage of people who recently had location-sharing on, Tweeted from https://twitter.com, and tapped to add an emoji or GIF. In certain instances, a city-level location was also included in the Tweet,” the social media giant posted late on Friday.

Twitter users have reportedly tweeted about the privacy issue last week, directed at accounts associated with Twitter and its founders.

Some users claimed the location added to their tweets was not their actual location but instead a place they had recently visited or searched for on the micro-blogging site.

The company has said it has removed the locations from tweets that were affected by the bug and has also reached out to such accounts users via email (if it’s provided to them), according to Inverse.com.

This comes barely two days after Google Confirmed THE PRACTICE of Gathering location data through Android smartphones even when the location services were turned off and there was no SIM card in the device.

CREATIVE POSTS

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development a Twitter post in late October from Kansas policeman Ben Gardner featured a large cow curled up on top of a BMW sedan’s hood.

The message from the spokesman for the Midwestern US state’s highway patrol department was that animals seek warm cars during winter’s cold.

“Look around your ride!” he warned in the tweet, with a smiley face.

Gardner’s informative and creative posts earned him an accolade Friday from the Police Twitter Awards, a United Kingdom-based competition showcasing the importance of Twitter “in building relationships with our communities.”

The officer’s Twitter profile @ Trooperbenkhp, which has nearly 32,000 followers, was the winner of the Best International Account -- the only award open to a police-related account outside of the UK.

“It is an honor to be the winner of this category,” Gardner said in an acceptance speech video published - where else - on Twitter.