Twitter for Android

Submission 49,715

About

Twitter for Android refers to a mobile client notification feature added by Twitter in early December 2018. The addition of the feature sparked controversy due to privacy concerns regarding the app's ability to divulge information about a user's mobile device without their consent. In early 2019, after a series of tweets by YouTuber Jack "Jacksfilms" Douglass containing the words "Twitter for Android", the phrase began circulating as a copypasta and a text reaction.

Origin

In December 2018, the Twitter mobile app received an update^[1] which enabled a feature identifying the mobile device a tweet was published from. Any tweet posted following the update received an automatic tag corresponding to the client used to send it. For example, tweets sent from an iPhone would receive "Twitter for iPhone" tag, while posts made via Android app were tagged "Twitter for Android".

The addition of the feature lead to several mishaps in which companies and individuals who were under obligations to use a certain type of device were caught using other devices. In one notable example, YouTuber Marques "MKBHD" Brownlee^[2] exposed the official Apple Music Twitter account for posting via the Twitter app for Android.

Additionally, the feature sparked controversy among users^[1], with some saying that they would prefer if the information about the type of their mobile device was kept private.

Spread

On December 29th, 2018. YouTuber Jacksfilms tweeted^[3] a photograph of himself together with his wife in a bar. In the replies, several users mocked the YouTuber for posting the photo from an Android device.

On December 30th, 2018, Jacksfilms^[4] tweeted "Twitter for Android" from his Android device. The tweet gained over 1,600 retweets and 33,500 likes in three weeks. YouTubers Jacksepticeye ^[5] and MKBHD^[6] reacted to the tweet in the reply section.

On January 2nd, 2019, Jacksfims^[7] posted a screenshot of his December 30th tweet. Starting January 3rd, 2019, Jacksfilms^[8] have been posting a series of tweets in which he attached screenshots of increasingly lengthy chains of tweets with the tag "Twitter for Android" repeating multiple times.

On January 11th, 2019, Jacksfilms^[9] posted a YouTube video explaining his motivation behind the tweets in which he called them an "art project" and provided examples of people reacting to his tweets. Jacksfilms also claimed that he would continue the tweet chain through December 31st, 2019.

In mid-January 2018, chain comments saying "Twitter for Android" began appearing on Reddit^[10].