13Comments
People have been tricked into deleting their Twitter accounts, after an obvious hoax went viral.
Several users posted the prank, which claimed that if people changed their birthdate to a day after 2007, they'd unlock a color scheme that only 12-year-olds on Twitter have access to.
This particular version of the scam got retweeted almost 30,000 times. Many other helpful people "confirmed" the story, posting screenshots of what children's Twitter looks like.
You can probably already see the problem here: 12-year-olds are not allowed on Twitter. If you do make the change, you are essentially informing Twitter you are a child and flagging your account for deletion.
If you do actually change your birthdate, you are greeted with the message: "Your account is locked. Our Terms of Service require everyone who uses Twitter to be 13 or older, and we have determined that you did not meet the minimum age requirement at the time this account was created."
The prank worked quite well as people who actually did it couldn't get into their account to reply what had happened. However, their friends and family passed on their messages of annoyance for them.
One person texted their friend:
"This stupid f**king girl tweeted something about how if you change your birth date to 2007 that your twitter will become colorful and me being the dumbass I am changed it and now I'm kicked out of my f**king twitter because I don't MEET THE AGE REQUIREMENT. I'm so f**king mad what the hell."
The user confirmed that they are locked out "UNTIL I'M 13!" in eight months' time.
Many, many annoyed users have had to set up new accounts due to the prank.
There are literally hundreds more if you'd like to scroll through a big list of the gullible for yourselves.
It got so big that Twitter ended up warning people about it.
"We’ve noticed a prank trying to get people to change their Twitter birthday in their profile to unlock new color schemes," they wrote, predictably, on Twitter.
"Please don’t try this. We don't have different color schemes based on your birthday."
If you have done this, like a ridiculous number of people have, you can appeal your suspension here.
