Public service announcement: setting your Twitter birthday to 2007 doesn’t unlock a dark mode, access to the beta test TWTTR app, or even bright strobing colours. All it really does is lock your account, as you’ll be identifying yourself to Twitter as a user under 13.
A recent, and spectacularly foolish, prank going around on Twitter is suggesting that changing your age to 2007 could make all of the above happen, in addition to gifting you admin privileges on the site, getting you donations via PayPal and even slapping one of the coveted blue verified ticks onto the profile.
It’s impossible to prove a negative, so I can’t explain why these things won’t happen. You’ll just have to trust me. Also, Twitter doesn’t have a dark mode yet, and so you can’t unlock it with a sneaky method similar to Facebook Messenger’s Dark Mode, a cool easter egg that might be to blame for this recent nonsensical prank.
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Instead, allow us to tell you the problem with setting your birthday to 2007, the year Twitter was founded.
To use Twitter you have to be 13. The oldest anyone born in 2007 can be is 12, an age that causes Twitter to immediately lock your account for your own safety. The only way to unlock it after that is a long conversation with Twitter support in addition to a photograph of your government issued I.D to prove you’re at the right age.
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Twitter Support doesn’t want to deal with it either, they’ve slung a report out there telling people not to set their birthdate to 2007. So, don’t disappoint them and get locked out of your account, eh?
We’ve noticed a prank trying to get people to change their Twitter birthday in their profile to 2007 to unlock new color schemes. Please don’t do this. You’ll get locked out for being under 13 years old.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) March 26, 2019
Been caught out by this latest Twitter prank? If so you can’t get hold of us on Twitter. But if you have, wisely, avoided this latest bit of internet weirdness, you can send us messages on Twitter at @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.