Twitter introduced ‘age gate' screening over a year ago in order to make the platform more legally sound for ‘adult' brands like liquor and beer vendors. Today, it's streamlined the process in its apps greatly in order to improve the follow rate and therefore the attractiveness of running an active account for those brands.
The previous method, which was instituted last June, involved following the brand, receiving a DM that took you to another page, asking for your age and then kicking you back and allowing you to follow. The new process creates an in-app flow that uses the standard iOS date picker to tap in your date of birth and then allows an immediate follow.
In addition to the easier flow, Twitter says that it will remember your status as a ‘legal adult' (but will not store your date of birth). This makes it even easier to follow more adult brands once you've followed the first.
The obvious side-effect of this is to make it much more attractive for adult brands to inhabit their Twitter accounts and to improve the chances that those brands will feel it's worthwhile to advertise on Twitter. And Twitter gets to tout the fact that the brands are advertising directly to people that have ‘proven' they're in a viable customer group for the product they're trying to sell.
Source: techcrunch
