Elon Musk owns Twitter (TWTR). And depending on your feelings about the perpetually online billionaire, you’re either ecstatic or looking to ditch the platform entirely. So far, Musk has laid off roughly half of Twitter's employees, announced that he's going to charge $8 for account verification, and complained about advertisers putting their campaigns on hold until they get a better sense of what Musk's platform will be.
If you dig Twitter's style, but could do without Musk, you can sign up alternatives like the decentralized social media platform Mastodon. Or just ditch microblogging entirely and stick to TikTok and Instagram.
If you’re an Elon fan, then by all means, keep tweeting and retweeting with gusto. But if you’re less than happy that Musk now has total control of one of the most influential social media platforms on Earth, then you might want to delete your account. Here’s how.
Sign into your Twitter account and, if you’re using the iOS or Android app, tap on your profile photo to access the information panel. If you log in via a web browser, simply click the More button.
Next, choose Settings and privacy and select Your account.
From there you’ll see the Deactivate your account tab. Yes, that’s a broken heart icon next to it.
Don’t get the wrong idea, the deactivate option is how you delete your account, but Twitter wants to make sure you’re ready to bounce. In other words, Twitter wants you to chill out before deciding to wipe your account.
To do that, the company doesn’t let you straight up delete your profile. Instead, you need to select either a 3-month or 12-month period to let your account remain active, before Twitter will delete it.
Before that, you’ll want to disconnect your Twitter account from all services you've used it to sign into. Think TweetDeck or something along those lines.
If you don’t log out of any of those services, Twitter will notice you signing into your account, and cancel your deactivation.
Now that you’ve logged out of your other accounts, you can choose the duration you want to wait before Twitter deletes your account and tap confirm. And with that, your Twitter account will soon be history.
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Got a tip? Email Daniel Howley at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.
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