I Want Out of Klout
by Brendan Delaney
Twitter's Complicity is Reckless
Klout is a site that claims to measure your influence in social media. Based on your activity and interactions on Twitter, it assigns you a number from 1 to 100. People with higher scores are considered better influencers, and they're rewarded with free stuff from advertisers. If they keep their Klout score high enough, they keep getting free stuff.
Most people seem to think that Klout is pretty harmless. It's a marketing scheme; a way for brands to connect with those people most likely to influence others to buy their stuff. And it's clever. But there's more to Klout than meets the eye. And not in a good way.
For starters, it's not an opt-in service. They rank everyone on Twitter. If you have a Twitter account, you have a Klout score. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself. Go to www.klout.com/yourtwitterusername.
- Unfortunately, you can't cancel Klout
So, when I signed up for Twitter, I didn't know that I would be automatically enrolled in an enormous online contest without my consent. Had I known, I would have thought twice about joining. Will employers take my Klout score into account some day? Will I be turned down for a job because my Klout score isn't high enough? I would never want to work for a company that takes my Klout score into account, but that's beside the point. I want to know who died and made Klout the central authority on social media.
But let's not overreact. Perhaps my fears are unfounded. It's not like I can't opt out of it, right? I mean, if I send Klout an email saying "please cancel", they would be happy to oblige. Right?
Wrong. You can't opt out. And if you email them, they will tell you that.
And that scares me.
In short, Klout has created an account for me without my consent, harvested my tweets, and assigned me a grade based on the nonsense I post on Twitter. It's impossible for me to opt out, and everyone in the world can see my score. Employers could use my Klout score as an evaluation tool, and a lot of people take it seriously. Yikes.
But let's not forget...the real guilty party here is Twitter. Their complicity in all this is truly mind boggling. They're making a huge mistake - they violate their users' trust. Because right now, a signup for Twitter is basically a signup for Klout. You can log into your Klout account by using your Twitter credentials, even though you never signed up for Klout. Since Twitter is silent on the matter, I guess they're saying that if you don't want a Klout account, don't sign up for Twitter. It's as simple as that.
Clearly, Twitter needs to put a stop to this. If you want a Klout score, you should have to sign up with Klout. The fact that you're automatically enrolled and can't opt out is practically criminal. Eventually, they may change that. Klout says that they'll be introducing a set of privacy controls in the future. But they don't say when, and I shouldn't have to wait. I want out of Klout. And I want out now.
August 31st, 2011 - 15:12
I may be in the minority here, but you shouldn’t be able to “opt out” of Klout any more than you can “opt out” of people overhearing your words spoken in public and judging you for it.
The days of implicit anonymity are coming to an end. Just like everything you do in the real world stick to you, so it things are increasingly starting to stick to you online. This is terrible if you are a spammer, con artist, etc…and is AMAZING for you if you do the right thing, treat people fairly, etc. That’s how trust is built, by operating out in the open with a track record of interactions and words behind you.
September 2nd, 2011 - 17:21
We need a cure for Klout. They’re like an STD! You don’t know what you’re getting into before you get stuck with it. #cure4klout
BTW, Dan Barrett, why do you think a company can entice you to give anything of value without an opt out? Would you like to be locked into Wal-mart for the rest of your life because you walked through their front door with a coupon for a free item?
September 24th, 2011 - 13:26
I agree. Klout is hacking accounts & deleting the tweets in my @mention. Every since I joined Klout I have gotten hacked twice. Kout makes your twitter account more vulnerable. I wish I had never joined. Even changing the twitter password dosn’t help. Klout is a twitter users security risk.
September 26th, 2011 - 12:54
First of all, if you’re naive enough to think that anything posted in Twitter is deemed “confidential” then you really need a lesson in the social realities of today. I am not and will not join Klout and the fact that they are “harvesting” tweets is what they have chosen to do with their time. I have not met anyone outside of Twitterville who even knows what Klout is, so the chances of employers checking your Klout score are probably narrowed to the young geek boss who has serious insecurity issues with his own klout. Same goes for Alexa influencing advertisers. I have not met one yet who even knows what an Alexa score is……the problem in cyberspace is that there are too many people trying to justify sad existences with quantification of meaningless efforts.
March 2nd, 2012 - 01:18
Lisa, I agree with what you are saying, particularly the last part (about excessive quantification of online activity… maybe to the detriment of actually accomplishing anything productive!) but the point here is that by using Twitter, you ALREADY have in effect, joined Klout:
Now that is rather unnerving, and not typical. Other services that harvest data e.g. PeerIndex, many more, will allow you to opt out upon request. Why can’t Klout do that too? That’s what I don’t like about Klout, as distinct from so many other equally vapid social media quantification services.
September 26th, 2011 - 13:20
Twitter is an open platform, there are plenty of other monitoring services like Klout which look at data which is public domain. If you are posting on Twitter you are NOT just talking to your friends, you are talking to the public as well and if you don’t realise this (as many dumb politicians have not) then you shouldn’t really be using it. Make your profile private if you don’t want to talk to the public.
Klout is just using data which many other services do including Google. Google trawl the web and will record any content you put online. People need to realise that the internet is a PUBLIC place what you put on it is potentially visible to everyone. It is not bright to blame Twitter for this, if they make their site private then it loses it’s whole point and becomes a private messageing service not an open social network/publishing platform. Publishing on Twitter is publishing online, you wouldn’t get angry at Google for indexing your website would you, or get angry if you did an interview on the news and people you didn’t know watched it would you?
September 26th, 2011 - 19:52
Twitter is not confidential by its very nature, i dont really see what the problem is, if you post a tweet anybody can see it ! If you tweet you are giving people information and you cant expect to be able to censor what they do with it.
Personally i like it as it helps me keep a tab on how i am engaging via the different networks