The right way to give up Elon Musk’s Twitter / X

As soon as upon a time, Twitter — now X — was the place to get your memes, world information, and popular culture. Nonetheless, even on the time, being an lively Twitter consumer additionally required sifting via a every day deluge of poisonous characters, bots, and deepfakes. Then the Elon Musk circus got here to city and commenced steadily altering the previously standard social community, to the purpose that a lot of its adherents started bailing by transferring to a number of of the brand new social networks, similar to Threads, Bluesky, or Mastodon.

Now that the 2024 US presidential election is over, Musk appears to be like like he’s going to be at the very least one of many powers behind the throne. Add to that current modifications which have made X much less protected to make use of, and it’s no shock that there’s now a brand new wave of X customers seeking to depart the platform. For those who’re one among them, right here’s some recommendation on deactivate your account.

For those who’re nonetheless lively on X or have quite a lot of buddies and followers you wish to keep in contact with, you could wish to be sure that they know the place you’re going and why. A method to try this is to first make your account personal in order that solely your present followers can see your account.

• Look within the aspect menu on the browser or faucet your private icon within the cell app.
• Within the browser, choose Extra > Settings and Privateness > Privateness and security > Viewers, media and tagging > Shield your posts.
• Within the cell app, choose Settings & Help > Settings and Privateness > Privateness and security > Viewers and tagging > Shield your posts.
• Within the browser pop-up, choose Shield.

Now, solely the individuals who observe it is possible for you to to see your posts and different account data. You’ll see a closed lock icon subsequent to your identify within the bottom-left nook of the display screen.

What you set in your “I’m leaving now” message relies on who your followers are. For those who’ve been rigorously vetting your account and know just about everybody who’s following you, you may allow them to know the place you’re going and what your new deal with is in case they wish to observe you.

If, alternatively, you’re a well-liked individual and should have followers who aren’t utterly reliable, you may both inform them the place you’re going with none particulars — or, to be cautious, merely say goodbye.

How lengthy do you have to depart your account personal earlier than you’re gone for good? Per week or so seems like a very good size of time, however ultimately, it’s as much as you.

For those who’ve been on Twitter / X for some time, you’ll most likely have a backload of tweets that you just may wish to preserve in case there’s data you’ll need sooner or later or simply as a reminder of previous glories. For those who haven’t been frequently backing up your account, right here’s how:

• Look within the aspect menu on the browser or faucet your private icon within the cell app.
• Within the browser, choose Extra > Settings and Privateness > Your account > Obtain an archive of your knowledge.
• Within the cell app, choose Settings & Help > Settings and Privateness > Your account > Obtain an archive of your knowledge.
• You’ll be requested to reenter your password and enter a verification code out of your registered e mail account, together with probably different verification codes.
• Choose Request archive.

It could take as much as 24 hours to get a duplicate of your archive; you’ll get notified each through the app and through e mail. You’ll get your data in two codecs: HTML and JSON. In accordance with X, the data will embrace:

…your profile data, your posts, your Direct Messages, your Moments, your media (photographs, movies, and GIFs you’ve hooked up to posts, Direct Messages, or Moments), a listing of your followers, a listing of accounts that you’re following, your deal with guide, Lists that you just’ve created, are a member of or observe, curiosity and demographic data that now we have inferred about you, details about adverts that you just’ve seen or engaged with on X, and extra. 

Okay, you’ve instructed your followers you’re leaving, and also you’ve bought your posts safely archived. Now it’s time to deactivate your account. Right here’s do it:

• In your browser, click on Extra within the backside left of the display screen. Within the cell app, faucet your profile icon.
• In your browser, choose Settings and Help > Settings and privateness > Your account > Deactivate your account.
• Within the cell app, choose Settings & Help > Settings and Privateness > Your account > Deactivate account.

There are a number of paragraphs of data to learn earlier than you get to the deactivation hyperlink, together with hyperlinks informing you about what knowledge should be accessible after you deactivate your account, change your username, or swap your present username to a special account.

You’ll additionally learn that your account received’t be completely gone after this course of — at the very least, not but. X retains your data for 30 days earlier than deleting it completely. To revive your account inside that point interval, log again in and make sure that you just wish to reactivate your account.

And keep in mind, in the event you’re searching for social networking, information, and dialog, you’ve bought a number of alternate options — or you may simply come right here to The Verge. Don’t fear. We’re all the time right here for you.