Regis Duvignau/Reuters
- Twitter is warning users against falling for a viral prank that causes victims to get locked out of their accounts.
- The prank promises users that changing the birth year on their account to 2007 will reveal a special, more colorful version of the Twitter feed.
- Instead, that change flags the user as under 13 years of age, and automatically locks their account until they "come of age."
A viral prank on Twitter that promises users a "colorful" feed has caused some victims to get locked out of their accounts.
Some Twitter users are spreading the lie that changing their birthdays in their profiles will unlock a more colorful version of the Twitter feed. But there’s one small problem — the supposed Easter egg doesn’t work, and those who do fall for it are getting locked out of their Twitter accounts.
It seems the viral prank stems from a tweet posted Monday night, which has since gained almost 12,000 retweets and almost 20,000 likes.
Unfortunately, there’s no colorful Twitter feed. Instead, following these instructions will lock you out of your account. That’s because by changing your birth year to 2007, you signal to Twitter that you’re under 13 — the required age for making a Twitter account, under the platform’s terms of service.
If a user doesn’t meet Twitter’s age requirements, Twitter locks the account. The account then can’t be accessed until the user "comes of age," so to speak.
There’s no telling how many people have fallen for the prank, but it’s apparently enough for Twitter to warn users about the hoax.
"We’ve noticed a prank trying to get people to change their Twitter birthday in their profile to 2007 to unlock new color schemes," Twitter Support posted Tuesday afternoon. "Please don’t do this. You’ll get locked out for being under 13 years old."
If you search "2007 birthday" on Twitter, it’s apparent just how many people seem to have gotten locked out of their accounts. And people are really upset.
We’ve reached out to Twitter for more details and will update if we hear back.
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Source: Business Insider – pleskin@businessinsider.com (Paige Leskin)