Be Careful Re Linking Your Social Media Accounts
Phyllis Zimbler Miller, M.B.A.
Author, filmmaker, playwright, podcaster; founder of free nonfiction Holocaust theater project THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE; co-host of podcast NEVER AGAIN IS NOW about antisemitism; Wharton MBA
I am usually very careful not to join a social media site with an automatic click via my Twitter or Facebook account. For each new social media site joined I create an account for that site with its own password.
Apparently I did not follow my own advice when I joined the site Wattpad a few years ago. For months I’ve been posting new fiction and nonfiction on the site without signing in because Wattpad has “recognized” me.
Yet after clearing the cache on my computer, I was no longer automatically recognized by Wattpad.
And herein started a tangled mess:
I needed an email address to retrieve my password from Wattpad. Only it turned out I didn’t have an email address registered on Wattpad because I had joined via my Twitter account.
But Wattpad had removed the “sign in via Twitter” option from the login, so I couldn’t sign in using my Twitter account. In fact, now only Facebook was offered as an alternative option in the login area.
After much messaging back and forth with Wattpad via Twitter, it turned out that there indeed was still a way to sign in via Twitter. Only that option was “disguised” as the Twitter icon link for the Wattpad site and did not appear to be for login purposes. (I only clicked the Twitter icon out of desperation and was shocked when I was able to login that way.)
Of course, the minute I was finally able to sign in to Wattpad via Twitter, I added an email and password to my Wattpad account. Now next time Wattpad does not recognize me, I’ll be able to use my email if I need to retrieve my password.
Advice about preventing this happening to you:
If you have joined social media sites via Twitter or Facebook, go back to those sites now and make sure you have at least an email address if not a password registered on those sites.
Taking the time to do this now could save hours of frustration down the road.
P.S. If you want to see the Cold War memoir whose newest chapter I was blocked from adding on Wattpad because I didn’t have a registered email address, go to http://budurl.com/TAintro to read TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY.