Generally speaking, if someone you follow sends a tweet that seems highly out of character (i.e. "Someone is posting a pic of you all over twitter ;( link2pic here" isn't what I'd expect from my friend Julie), you should be wary of clicking on the link that's included. Malicious third parties often attempt to trick users by using shortened links that disguise the nature of the site they're directing people to. In an effort to crack down on this, Twitter recently introduced its own URL shortener on Twitter.com that preserves the first few characters of a domain so that people can have a sense of what site they're being sent to before they click a link. For example, a link shortened via Twitter.com would read "bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…" instead of "http://goo.gl/oTzoc" or "http://bbc.in/q8U5GH." Users should also be choosy when it comes to entering their passwords on third-party sites and apps. Always check the URL of the site before you enter your login information--phishing sites often attempt to trick people into giving up personal information by replicating the color, theme and layout of legitimate websites (see Twittter.com, for example--but beware what you share).
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