Turds from the Twitterbird

The Twitterbird has pooped on my timeline

There is something that I really hate about Twitter. Every so often, I get a "Promoted Tweet" which is nothing more than an advertisement in my timeline. It is an ugly little turd delivered to my by the Twitterbird. There is no way to opt out of these advertisements. I hate advertising with a passion. I do as much as I can to avoid exposure to advertising. I do not listen to the radio. I watch very little television and when I do, I always mute the television and otherwise occupy myself when commercials come on. I have a host of Firefox extensions that block ads, prevent dynamic content from starting automatically, block cookies from unwanted sources and otherwise prevent tracking, data mining and profiling. I cut almost all ties with Google when I discovered how much information it was collecting about me from various sources for advertising and marketing purposes. But I cannot get rid of these promoted tweets. ICK!!!

I looked today in Twitter's support pages for some information about these dreadful advertisements and discovered that there is, in fact, no way to opt out. "Users who dislike a Promoted Tweet can simply dismiss it from their timeline with a single click, but they will not be able to opt out of seeing ads in the timeline." Furthermore, the coneheads at Twitter think that there is a "right" time to deliver an ad to me and that at some point I am the "right" person to see it and that it is going to be "interesting". "A Promoted Tweet will appear in a user’s timeline only if the Tweet is likely to be interesting and relevant to that user. " "We are strongly committed to delivering the most relevant ads to the right user at the right time." Let me tell you something Twitter, there is never a right time to give me an ad. NEVER! The ads you are sending me are NOT relevant and NOT interesting. I am NOT THE RIGHT AUDIENCE!!!

I realise that I am tilting at windmills, but I am still going to make my little protest. From now on, every time I receive one of these promoted tweets, I am going to respond to the advertiser and tell them that as a result of their ad, I am going to boycott their company. Two companies landed on my boycott list today. It seems that there are going to be many, many more.