If you’ve ever found yourself going down Twitter rabbit holes by following obnoxious repliers to viral tweets, the chances are that you’ll uncover a whole load of unsavoury content that you feel obliged to report.
You probably don’t care if they find out who you are – they are, after all, internet strangers. But what if a colleague or relative is breaking the rules? Will the person know who reported them? Are Twitter reports anonymous?
Are Twitter reports anonymous?
Yes. There’s no way for somebody to tell that it was you who reported them – but they will know that their tweet was investigated, even if no action is taken.
I’ve personally not had any tweets reported (please don’t take this as an invitation to do so), but I have seen people sharing emails from Twitter when they have been examined and found not guilty by Twitter court. Some edgy accounts see this as a badge of honour: “We have investigated the reported content and could not identify any violations of the Twitter rules or applicable law,” the email reads. “Accordingly, we have not taken any action at this time.”
If they are found guilty by Twitter court, they’ll also get an email telling them about it – but once again this doesn’t include the identity of the reporter. Instead it will just share the punishment: a deleted Tweet, a locked account or read-only mode, where the person is blocked from tweeting, but can carry on reading what everyone else is chatting about in their absence (the Twitter equivalent of the naughty step).
So can anybody tell if I reported them on Twitter?
Not directly, but you may leave a clue by mistake.
When you report an account, you first have to flag the tweet that bothers you, then you have the option to select up to four others that show a person is persistently a jerk. After all of this, it gives you the option to block the person in question.
If you click this, whether intentionally or by mistake, then you have left a big clue that it was you who was offended in the first place. It’s not that Twitter will let them know directly, but if they try to follow you or don’t see any tweets on your page, then they’ll know you’ve blocked them. And from there, they might well figure out that it was you who put them in Twitter’s bad books.
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Actually they can tell who reported it. I reported someone and got their account suspended but they were able to get their account back and screenshotted the report which had my Twitter handle on it.