Once upon a time, Twitter \u2014 now X \u2014 was the<\/em> place to get your memes, world news, and pop culture. However, even at the time, being an active Twitter user also required sifting through a daily deluge of toxic characters, bots, and deepfakes. Then the Elon Musk circus<\/a> came to town and began steadily altering the formerly popular social network, to the point that many of its adherents began bailing by moving to one or more of the new social networks, such as Threads<\/a>, Bluesky<\/a>, or Mastodon<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Now that the 2024 US presidential election is over, Musk looks like he\u2019s going to be at least one of the\u00a0powers behind the throne<\/a>. Add to that recent changes that have\u00a0made X less safe to use<\/a>, and it\u2019s no surprise that there is now a new wave of X users looking to leave the platform<\/a>. If you\u2019re one of them, here\u2019s some advice on how to deactivate your account. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019re still active on X or have a lot of friends and followers you want to stay in touch with, you may want to make sure they know where you\u2019re going and why. One way to do that is to first make your account private so that only your current followers can see your account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Now, only the people who follow you will be able to see your posts and other account information. You\u2019ll see a closed lock icon next to your name in the bottom-left corner of the screen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What you put in your \u201cI\u2019m leaving now\u201d message depends on who your followers are. If you\u2019ve been carefully vetting your account and know pretty much everyone who is following you, you can let them know where you\u2019re going and what your new address is in case they want to follow you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If, on the other hand, you\u2019re a popular person and may have followers who aren\u2019t completely trustworthy, you can either tell them where you\u2019re going without any details \u2014 or, to be cautious, simply say goodbye.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How long should you leave your account private before you\u2019re gone for good? A week or so sounds like a good length of time, but in the end, it\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you\u2019ve been on Twitter \/ X for a while, you\u2019ll probably have a backload of tweets that you might want to keep in case there is info you\u2019ll want in the future or just as a reminder of past glories. If you haven\u2019t been regularly backing up your account, here\u2019s how:<\/p>\n<\/div>\nStep one: go private<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Step two: download your past<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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