How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets
family,  Technology

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets

Have your twitter images been sideways? Literally? Have your tweets been claimed by some strange third party? Has your twitter feed been looking hinky? What’s up with that? This past weekend I’d had it. My audience was even telling me on twitter that my tweets didn’t look right and the images weren’t the correct images that corresponded to the topic of my tweets. So I checked out what my reader and good friend Jenn was telling me. Sure enough the images were sideways on occasion and there were actual ads in some of my tweets that I had not permitted to be there. That was really not okay. I needed it fixed. But how?

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets

It took only a few moments to realize the problem was entirely with Link.is. Link.is is a third party app which describes itself as a link customization service that at some point was activated on my twitter feed. I didn’t recall activating it, but it’s possible I did at some time. So I started googling and figuring out what Link.is is. It’s an URL shortener app like Bit.ly. BUT the kicker for me was the extra ad that occasionally was being inserted into my tweets. Technically the URL shortener Link.is link inserted a different link and if other twitter users followed it then they would see a different picture than the one that I had posted with my blog post or tweet and an image for an ad often showed before they saw the original content I had posted. That had to be stopped. I was a bit worried it would be difficult to get rid of the extra ad and link shortener BUT it was actually super easy. Consider this: I work with a client who is a patient group. What if an ad was inserted in a tweet I posted about something they were doing and that ad was for a competing event at a similar time, or a conflicting event? Not cool at all.

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets also will help you if you are a blogger and you have been paid to send out a tweet linking to a particular URL. I have heard of some bloggers losing a job, or losing money because they didn’t even know Link.is was enabled. So follow the rules and be done with it.

So, if this is happening to you here’s what you do.

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets
It’s easy to remove this from your tweets

How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets:

Five Easy Steps –  How to Remove Link.is From Your Tweets

1. Go to your Twitter home page.

2. Go to Twitter profile.

3. Search under settings. On left hand side you will see a tab for apps. There you will see every third party app you have given permission to potentially post to twitter for you.

4. Take some time to review all of the permissions that have been granted for each of those apps. The last thing you want is for some app to be given carte blanche to write and post tweets for you. That’s rarely okay. See image above where it says Hootsuite is allowed permissions to read, write and direct message. Change any of those permissions if you are no longer comfortable with that.

5. Find the Link.is icon app and click revoke access.

For me, as a business person and social media consultant this app was a fail and that just wasn’t okay. I tweet a lot and the final straw was that a reader complained about this link shortener being really annoying. She said she refused to click through any of their links. I value that feedback and was really irritated to see ads also popping up when clicking through to the link.is link. So there you go. A reader and friend told me she hated it and that’s valuable input to me. If ever you have a complaint about something here please leave me a comment and I will always try to fix it.

Mom of two beautiful active girls, traveller, fitness junkie, social media consultant, and keeper of the sanity.

11 Comments

    • Paula

      Eithne: You are certainly not the only one since it was clear to me that my audience hated seeing that in tweets and it was putting them off clicking through at all!! That’s not good.

  • Mummy Fever

    OMG I can’t tell you how glad I am to have found this article and I can’t thank you enough! I have had this exact problem. Hopefully sorted now thanks to you!

    • Paula

      Hey Mummy Fever: Very glad you found it then!! Hope that this sorts it out for you. I just have to remind myself never ever to grant that app permission again. I see still linkis links floating around out there with my old tweets attached so I am cautious what I click on also. Thanks for reading!

  • Freda @ Freda's Voice

    This Link.is just had me screwed for a tweet I was to be paid for. They were willing to hook me up with a new paid opp but I’m still a little perturbed this app can install itself and take over without permission.
    Is there any way to make sure it doesn’t re-add itself again?

    • Paula

      That sucks!! Did you give it permission at some point or did it add itself? That’s vile if it somehow added itself. I will check that out to see if there’s a way to prohibit for good.

  • Judith

    Heellllppp. I still can’t remove it. I’ve been to my Twitter settings but I can’t see Link.is

    Am I doing something wrong?

    • Paula

      JUDITH: First of all take a breath. Second of all – Are Link.is in all your tweets?? Or are they just in the ones that you are retweeting?

    • Paula

      Okay and that would be me removing the tweetable!! That’s nuts. Thanks for letting me know. It’s gone.