Auto-split and Anonymization Features
We have rolled out two new features in the past 24 hours. The first is an auto-split feature that will enable your bot to split up tweets that would be longer than 140 characters into multiple tweets. In the past, if a tweet was longer than 140 characters, Twitter would simply dump the tweet and nobody except the poster would know that it vanished. Now, enabled by default, these tweets will no longer be dropped and instead split up until multiple tweets and automatically add a “(1/2)” or “(2/2)” to the end of those tweets. The format of the split delimiters is completely customizable as well, but we felt the example above was a pretty safe default.
The second new feature is a special request from a friend of ours to allow a way for users to post to bots and be anonymously retweeted. With this enabled, the user’s Twitter account name would be replaced by a consistent anonymous identifier like “U1234″. The consistency is that the user will always keep that anonymous name with that particular bot. This allows the users to keep an anonymous identity and still be able to carry on a conversation where people can still identify each other without actually knowing who the other person is. The reasoning behind this feature is to allow a bot to act as a virtual support group or 12-step program. We do not, however, impose any way that this feature should be used as long as it is not used for nefarious purposes. If a problem arises, we do have the ability to revoke any and all rights of this feature. Our stance is to err on the side of caution and maintain a fair degree of privacy for all involved. Should we be made aware of anything illegal or questionable by the proper authorities, we will cooperate with the authorities assuming official procedures such as warrants and/or subpoenas are produced (please don’t make us do that!). Please note that in order to allow this, the anonymous feature is not 100% anonymous as we do have to keep track of the user’s Twitter ID number to maintain the pseudo-identities. We do our absolute best to make sure this will remain as anonymous as humanly and technically possible. We take no responsibility with how you or your user’s use this feature and cannot be held liable for any breaches of privacy that you or your users may expect. Use this feature at your own risk and make sure your users are aware of this fact.
We hope you like and enjoy the new features. If you run into any bugs or have special feature requests, please do not hesitate to let us know by sending us a message via our Contact Us page.
Thanks!
Paul & Garrett
The Twitfinite Crew
