Don’t change your birth year to 2007 to Twitter or you’ll be locked out

There are tons of hoaxes constantly doing the rounds on Twitter, including the recent Bitcoin scam. Today, I want to warn you about one that’s taken over the platform over the past couple of days: the “birth year hoax“.

It’s as simple as it is stupid: it encourages you to head into your settings and change your birth year to 2007, in order to unlock a colourful feed or a ‘retro’ theme across the site. Instead, users who fall for the scam will be locked out of their accounts because Twitter prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from using the site.

So, as soon as you change your birth year, Twitter thinks that you’re only 12 years old, and blocks your account.

Twitter has automatically prevented users under 13 from using the social network since May last year and its terms of use state that the social network is "not directed to children."

You were promised a new timeline of colour options. You ended up getting blocked from the social networking site.

Earlier this week, rumours were circulating that changing your birthyear would give you access to Twitter's nostalgic old appearance.

Twitter has warned users to ignore a hoax suggesting an alternative colour scheme will appear in the app if they change their birth year to 2007. Users won't get a new colour scheme on the Twitter app if they change their birth year, the social network says.

If you, like many people, were lured into changing your birth year on Twitter to 2007 to unlock new colour schemes, you fell victim to one of the social media's latest hoaxes.

"Please don't do this," the company said via a tweet.

If you’ve unfortunately fallen prey to this scam and are locked out of your account, follow the instructions in the email the company has sent you to regain access.

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