Countering the various "Why I Left / You Should Leave Twitter" arguments going around this a.m. is this perspective from @jeffjarvis. I think a fair description of his arguments this morning would be (1) there is utility in staying where one's relationships remain, (2) there is utility in staying on Twitter to convince others to leave, and (3) Musk's ownership is likely to be temporary, leaving hope that the older dynamic can be reestablished.
@IntlLawGnome @jeffjarvis
If you quit twitter and delete your account, you break the web.
If you've been on Twitter for any length of time, there are hundreds (thousands?) of posts that have URLs that will 404 if you delete.
If anyone ever thought you were smart/witty/funny enough to quote tweet, you break their timeline. If you were ever embedded on a blog, you break their website.
Make Musk host your shit FOREVER, even if you're not active over there.
@jeffjarvis @jimmylittle @IntlLawGnome Also, when you leave Twitter, your old Twitter handle can be taken by someone else who will then continue posting in your name.
@RalphAtHamburg That's why it's better to just delete all your content (there are tools online to do this for you) and leave the account open but abandoned.
Or maybe leave a parting sentiment for the new owners like I did.
@ang6666 @RalphAtHamburg Yeah, but nothing does. You can't delete the real old stuff even from Twitter's web app. It's just a limitation of their platform/API.
If you use the tools to delete as much as they're able, your profile will still be blank when you look at it, because Twitter seems to archive and hide posts past a certain date.
@LouisIngenthron @RalphAtHamburg it's weird. On the app it is blank. On my laptop, I can see the old stuff.
@LouisIngenthron @RalphAtHamburg there are tools but they don't seem to work on really old stuff unless you pay. So been deleting one at a time.