Tip Jar – Sending and Receiving Tips in Twitter

In recent times, Twitter is constantly bringing in new features to elevate user interactions. Twitter Spaces has been hugely successful in improving engagements and interactions. Another recent introduction ‘Fleets’ inspired from Facebook and Instagram ‘Stories’ feature was not as successful as expected. A newer alternative for ‘Fleets’ is already on the pipeline to be launched. Now the new entrant from Twitter is ‘Tip Jar’.

Why and What is Tip Jar?

Tip Jar is introduced as an attempt to support people who drive conversations on Twitter and keep the timelines of users engaging. From the introduction of ‘Spaces’, a lot of creators are running ‘Spaces’ where a lot of audiences participate. There is no doubt in the fact that these conversation drivers have given Twitter a breath of fresh air in recent times. Twitter has realized this and has responded by introducing Tip Jar. From now on, People can tip money to the accounts enabled with Tip Jar to encourage them. Tipping can be done by visiting a profile and clicking on the ‘cash’ icon, or directly while in Twitter Spaces.

Who can use Tip Jar?

Tip Jar is still in its early stages. Twitter has rolled out this new feature to only selected audiences as a test run. The audiences are:

For Sending Tip – Currently, anyone using Twitter in ‘English’ is allowed to send tips to a user-enabled with Tip Jar. Twitter has stated that the feature will be soon rolled out to other language users as well.

For Receiving Tip – The option to receive tips through Tip Jar is now enabled for only a selected pool of creators, journalists, non-profits, and subject experts. If the initial run becomes successful, everyone will be enabled with this option, according to Twitter.

How to send a Tip?

Navigate to the Twitter profile for whom you wish to tip an amount. You will find the ‘cash’ icon to the left side of DM and follow option. Click on the icon. Twitter will take you to a third-party payment service of your choice. There you can make your payment meant for the tip. Terms and conditions of the third party are applicable when you make payment. Twitter does not take any commission from the tip you give. So, whatever you tip is directly sent to the respective Twitter account user.

How to receive a Tip?

As we mentioned earlier, only a selected group of people are provided with an option to activate Tip Jar. To know if you are enabled with Tip Jar, go to the “Edit Profile” option. There, if you see an option called “Tip Jar” with default value as “off”, then you can change the value to “on” and use the Tip Jar. When you enable Tip Jar for your account, you will be asked to fill out the relevant details like your account details and other information. Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal, Razorpay, and Venmo are the currently available third-party services in Twitter. You can choose any of these payment service providers to your account. The user is also supposed to provide a username while setting up the payment service. Please note that the username, address, and tip detail can be available publicly.

Every new model will have its shortcomings. Tip Jar is no different. Users have reported that Tip Jar exposes a few private details to the public. Twitter has also warned about this possibility on their terms and conditions page. But worry not, follow the below steps to keep your details private and safe.

How to protect your private details?

The exposure of personal information is not exactly because of Twitter’s shortcomings. Payment services generally have guidelines to provide details when a payment is made. That is where the loophole is. Payment services by default share the details of the payer and payee with one another. You can avoid this by changing the default settings.

For instance, when you tip an account through PayPal, your payment invoice will have your address which is private information. To avoid your address from being shared, use ‘Send with purchase protection’ while tipping. On the next screen, you will be asked to provide ‘Shipping address’ where you can select as ‘Not Applicable’. This will avoid the exposure of your address.

Another common exposure is your email address. PayPal by default sends the email address details to the payer even if the payment did not go through. Usually, PayPal uses your email address as the default contact info when you have not specifically given another address. To avoid this exposure, set up a PayPal nickname. When a nickname is available, the nickname is displayed and your email id gets saved from exposure.

Conclusion

This is pretty much all you will need to know about Tip Jar before starting. Do not forget to go through Twitter terms and conditions before using Tip Jar. It is still early days, and we can expect changes too in the way Tip Jar operates. Keep following our space for the latest updates on Twitter.