We have seen an increase in the number of schools using Twitter, its uses and benefits are wide and varied, indeed we encourage schools to follow our own Twitter accounts (@embcsupport and @empsn) for information and service updates.

The experience of schools on a network of using Twitter has thrown up some issues and we would like to clarify some of these issues. Issues can occur when using a web filtering solution which requires you to state a proxy on the device (i.e. none transparent filtering.)

Twitter is a social media service meaning that web filtering solutions will categorise the web resource as ‘Social Media.’ Default school filtering levels typically do not allow access.

To Enable the use of Twitter you will need to adjust your web filtering, to permit the category either for your site IP ranges, device IP addresses or the user groups set up for your filtering – assuming your AD linked. This will enable Twitter through the web browser.

However, the Twitter app does not fully support web proxy services so even when the web filtering category has enabled the App on your IOS/Android device will not work fully. The recommendation here would be to use the Web Browser for interacting with Twitter, or for you to move to an inline web filtering solution such as the offerings from ekte NetSweeper or London Grid for Learning.

To adjust your existing web filtering, you will need to make changes within your web filtering portal or contact your service desk who will advise or perform this for you – depending on your management arrangement.