Where Do Broken Tweets Go?

A few times of late I’ve seen queries by folks – and even been asked directly – about where @reply tweets ‘go’ when the person the tweet is intended for does not exist.

For example: if you make a typographical error, instead of sending a reply to @Sheamus, it goes to @Dheamus, instead. @Dheamus doesn’t exist, so what happens to that tweet? Where does it go?

Here’s the scoop: they don’t go anywhere.

No tweet goes anywhere. When you submit anything to Twitter, it becomes part of your timeline. And your timeline is part of the Twitter stream. It doesn’t work like email. If and when you submit a reply to a user that doesn’t exist it neither bounces back nor disappears into the ether, because Twitter doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t need to find somebody for your reply to be validated. All tweets are equal; although it’s certainly true that some tweets are more equal than others.

The way it works is the replies tab on your homepage (or on your Twitter client) looks for mentions of your username (i.e., @Sheamus) and delivers any that it finds back to you.

Example: I’ve just sent a tweet to @ThisUserDoesNotExist. Here it is:

And here it is in my timeline:

But here is @ThisUserDoesNotExist’s profile page. There’s nobody there, but my message has still gone out and become part of the Twitter stream, for all to see, if they so choose.

Well, in part at least. Replies sent to non-existent users don’t seem to show up in Twitter search. But it’s definitely there on my profile, and if you have your account settings to see all replies, you should have seen it.

What is interesting is if somebody registered @ThisUserDoesNotExist, my tweet should be delivered to them when they first log in. What makes this a curio is you can speculate on any celebrities and brands that you think will soon arrive on Twitter, and send them messages now, which they will receive in the future. It’s kind of like time-travel.

Theoretically, at least. I’m not completely sure how Twitter handles tweets that were sent before somebody signed up, but you might want to get your list off to @TheRealFatherChristmas today, just to be on the safe side.

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