If you use Twitter, or for that matter any social media, one of the risks you may be taking is that your current or a potential future employer finds your Twitter account and from that infers that you are a conservative, and then uses that info to discriminate against you. I am passing on a couple of techniques that I learned that will allow you to use Twitter for viewing of tweets while eliding your political leanings.
First off, do not like any tweets or post any tweets that you do not want the world to see. Anything you like or tweet is publicly visible. Personally, I like to use Twitter as a source for breaking news, but I'm not interested in contributing to their business by posting my content, so I don't find this to be a limitation at all. If you already have a large history of political tweets, you can use a service like
tweetdelete to delete them.
Second, move anyone you are following who posts political or other sensitive content over to a Private List. In the Twitter web UI, click on "Lists" than click the icon at the top of the page to create a new list. Mark the list as private. Now add every political or other account that you want to follow, but don't want others to see you follow, to this list. Make sure you unfollow them after you add them to the list. I created a list called "Politics" and moved all the accounts I like to follow that post political content there. I also unfollowed all these people. This leaves just some hobby and work related accounts in the list I follow, which keeps my Twitter timeline 100% non political. To see the political timeline, just browse to your Politics list.
Finally, mark your account as Protected. In the Twitter web interface, click on the Elipses (the three dots), than "Settings and Privacy", then "Privacy and Safety", then "Audience and Tagging". Now check "Protect your Tweets". What this will do is make anything you DO tweet only visible to those who follow you. You will also have to approve anyone who wishes to follow you. Personally, I don't use this setting, and because I follow rule #1 above, it doesn't matter because anything I might tweet or like will be non-political in nature. I never like or reply to any of the accounts in the Politics List (see #2 above).
With these simple steps, you can use Twitter for breaking news, hobbies, friends, and work-related content, while keeping your political leanings private.
