“Need help identifying an anonymous Twitter account.”¹ You may have seen this kind of post on Reddit or other forums. If you want to find out who is behind a Twitter account, you’re not the only one.

During May 13-15, 2022, two groups conducted an analysis of 44,058 randomly selected Twitter accounts. As a result, they found that 19.42% of these accounts are likely to be fake or spam. Therefore, if you are dating or doing business with someone on Twitter, confirming their identity is a must.

Here, this post will show you how to find out a Twitter account owner’s real identity legally and easily.

1. Search on Twitter with some tricks

Since the Twitter account username is the thing we’re sure of for most, try to do some digging on Twitter further. Here are a few tricks to search on Twitter.

• Until: date — Search for “anything before this date”
• Since: date — Search for “anything after this date”
• To:@username — Search for “replies sent to this user”
• From:@username — Search for “replies by this user”

For example, search until:2022-01-01 to:@CNN on Twitter, and you’ll get the tweets and conversations mentioning CNN before January 1^st, 2022.

Searching until:2022-01-01 from:@CNN on Twitter, you’ll get tweets and replies CNN sent before January 1^st, 2022.

Now try to do your own searching to see what comes up. If you’re lucky, you may find some tweets mentioning his/her real name or other info, so that you can figure out who’s behind it or avoid a scam. Beware of scammers who might DM you on Twitter with the intention of deceiving you into giving them your money like in this case².

2. Identify fake Twitter accounts with BeenVerified

As an industry-leading people search tool, BeenVerified boasts one of the most comprehensive collections of social media profiles. By filling in the username and clicking Search Now on BeenVerified search page, you’ll get all the information related to this Twitter account in minutes.

In the generated report, you may find useful details about the person such as age, contact info, address, criminal records, and other social media accounts. It just takes a few clicks with the BeenVerified reverse username lookup tool.

3. Run a username lookup with Social Catfish

To find out who is behind a Twitter account, you cannot miss Social Catfish, a people search engine with 2 million users per month. Its reverse username search tool allows you to locate people using just a Twitter username. 

You can do an in-depth username check using a username from any social profile. What’s more, Social Catfish also offers more search types like name, email, phone, address, and even image search. The more info you provide, the more you gain from its enormous data sources, and the more accurate your report is.

4. Check account details

Carefully look for signs on the accounts that can point it out to be fake.

To start with, check the account username. Most real profiles’ usernames are made up of meaningful words related to their real names or lives. But if it’s composed of random characters without making any sense, it’s likely that this is a fake account.

Besides, review the tweets and retweets of the profile, and see if the user has shared any personal stuff or not. Plenty of promotional tweets instead of personal thoughts or sharing may indicate a fake Twitter or promotional account.

Next, look for the reactions to their tweets and figure out if they have real connections or not. 

Last but not least, check their user bios to find out more information about the owner. Some people share their other social network accounts (e.g. Facebook or Instagram accounts) on their bios to enhance engagement and connectivity. If you find any of them, follow the links to gain more details.

5. Find out who’s behind Twitter account with Spokeo

Offering over 12 billion records from thousands of data sources, Spokeo provides an easy-to-navigate interface, quick response, and well-organized reports. Searching by Twitter username, Spokeo helps you reveal the owner’s identity, avoid scams, and investigate infidelity. 

1. Visit the Spokeo username search website. 
2. Enter a Twitter username and hit Search Now.
   
3. Wait for the algorithm to run the search and return matchings in a report. After that, you may find the owner’s personal details, location info, online profiles, contact info, and many others if available.
   

6. Cross-search social media

When a user asks “Do you use the same username on other platforms?” on a forum, it sparks a heated discussion³. Many users replied affirmatively, while some expressed safety concerns. But it does suggest that you may take advantage of this habit to search for a Twitter account by cross-searching social media.

Also, some users enjoy sharing their other social network accounts. For instance, they may share their Twitter usernames or links on Instagram bio pages. 

Therefore, you may find something you’re interested in by searching the username on popular social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. With more profiles and posts, you’ll be able to learn more about that person, before making financial decisions or building a romantic relationship.

However, if you fail to find the potential accounts on other social media, or you’re not sure about that, you may turn to dedicated username lookup tools for help.

How to report a fake Twitter account?

1. Open the profile you’d like to report.
2. Select the overflow icon.
   
3. Select Report and then select the type of issue you’d like to report.
   
4. Once you’ve submitted your report, it’ll provide recommendations for additional actions you can take to improve your user experience.

So these are all the methods for you to find out who is behind a Twitter account. If you have other methods or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to leave a word below.

1. OSINT [More_Bed_126]. (2023, March 6). Need help identifying an anonymous twitter account. [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/OSINT/comments/11j57rq/need_help_identifying_an_anonymous_twitter_account/ ↩︎
2. Reported Scams [gda32570]. (2023, June 22). Twitter Scam [Online forum post]. Sweepstakes Forum. https://www.sweepsadvantage.com/forum/threads/twitter-scam.100438/ ↩︎
3. Casual Discussion [SoapySamurai]. (2022, June 23). Do you use the same username on other platforms? [Online forum post]. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=2024888 ↩︎