The Dangers of Direct Message Links

Dear Readers, can I advise you, if you are on Twitter and you receive a Direct Mail with a link in it, and a message like "get a look at this", would you believe it" or "what are you doing in this video?" - just delete it. No matter how tempting, or how close the imaginary friend is, just delete it. It is almost certainly a portal to Hell, where you will give up all your passwords and end up spamming everybody else with fake Direct Messages and weight loss adverts. And try to avoid accidentally clicking on the link while trying to delete it - frankly, I fear fat fingers.

It is, however, worth messaging the alleged sender - mostly to warn them they may have been hacked, but also just in case it was genuine. I received such a message a few weeks ago, and deleted it as spurious and dangerous. Later on, I found out it was in fact a link to a genuine video of me.

What an Accountancy Systems Analysts' Annual Disco that was. You should have seen me, wearing a paper hat and dancing to the "Birdy Song". I don't know, we're just wild when we get together.