I deactivated my Twitter account nearly two weeks ago, following the completion of Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform. Only a few days later, I reactivated it (you get thirty days before the deactivation is final) so my Developer account, too, would be active and I could try to determine the reasons behind what I wrote about in “Static tweets: the deprecation.”
I then kept the account open for a few days, especially during the period surrounding this year’s U.S. elections, but used it only to lurk. My last tweet there had been from right before I first deactivated the account, as I mentioned downloading my data in preparation for “evacuation.”
Finally, yesterday, amid this week’s rising tide of chaos involving what are expected to be Twitter’s massive security and maintenance problems — especially those traceable to the after-effects of ongoing key firings, layoffs, and resignations — I decided to deactivate the account again, and this time for good.1
That ended eleven years of Twitter use under two different accounts. The original lived (under me, anyway) 2011–2014, while my final one began as a mainly-for-business-stuff account in 2014 and evolved gradually in 2015 into a just-for-me account, which it remained until its deactivation yesterday.
Update, 2022-11-22: After further research and consultation with others whose judgments I trust, I have reactivated but locked the Twitter account. This is despite my ongoing concerns about Twitter’s resilience in the wake of additional departures (voluntary or otherwise) of particularly significant sets of the company’s employees, and those concerns may lead me back to a true deactivation down the line.
I will further update this post as appropriate.
Update, 2023-02-02: Have once again deactivated the account, this time in accordance with the “further research and consultation with others whose judgments I trust.” I intend to let this change’s thirty-day grace period expire without intervention.
Update, 2023-03-22: And yet 😞 🤢 . . .
I will add that quite a few folks out there in InternetzLand urged keeping one’s account active, even if unused, to avoid someone else’s later being able to “squat” on the now-abandoned Twitter handle. However, I’m no “brand” or “name,” so anyone who might end up with my old Twitter handle,
BryceWrayTX, will find it an empty vessel. ↩︎
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