Twitter feature allows age-restriction screening

Alcohol brands, breweries and mature content all need barriers put in place to ensure innocent eyes aren't watching. Many age-restricted websites already have processes in place to ascertain the age of their users.

A new feature has been launched by Atlanta-based social marketing firm Vitrue. Called "Twitter Gate", it will control who has access to age-restricted promotional messages by inserting an extra process in the Twitter Follow request.

This extra step in the Follow process asks the user for their country and date of birth, in much the same way age-restricted brands have been doing on their websites for a long time.

However, the process relies entirely on the user entering their correct date of birth, there are no checks done to verify this.

Vitrue's director of product management, John Nolt, told Mashable, "Brands have a responsibility to make sure they take appropriate measures to ensure the right age group and demographic is looking at their content. This will allow brands to demonstrate their commitment to that effort."

Vitrue has set up a Twitter account for a fake brewery called BrookstrutAle (@BrookstrutAle) via which the Twitter Gate process is demonstrated.

Tags: age restriction, alcohol, brand marketing, mature marketing, social media, social network, target audience