If you haven’t read my previous posts about Twitter, I recommend reading them for the back story and how a phone number got my account suspended.
85 Days since I’ve been knocked off Twitter
I don’t recall when, but Twitter did finally give me an option to delete the “offending tweet”. What was even more alarming is the fact that someone posted the exact same Tweet as I verbatim and their account was still active. I can only speculate that for some reason my account has been on their radar as one to shut down and this gave them a way to do so. What furthers this belief is what happened once I got back into my account.
Once I was back in, initially I had no followers and people I followed which is normal from what I read. The account takes some time to re-establish itself. But I noticed something odd after a week of being active on the account again. No one was responding to my Tweets, my replies, or anything. I would usually get a few likes, maybe a retweet here and there, and sometimes a reply especially if it was more a conversation about a specific topic. So, I ran one of those services which check if you are shadowbanned and sure enough it came back that it could not find me.
Then Twitter did something I find completely reprehensible. They went and marked all my past posts and all my past images as being sensitive. I checked my account settings, and I did not toggle that what I post is sensitive. In fact, Twitter placed the warning that they put the warning I could appeal. This was on every single post. I appealed a few with a copy-paste that this is not a sensitive picture, why are they doing this, and so on. Then I even called out specifics such as “Why are you marking a picture of a two-way radio as sensitive?” None of the appeals were answered.
Here’s just one of the images posted which received the warning. Look at the post’s age, 3 seconds and the warning already appeared. I posted the exact same image to my DolfinWX account and it did not get the same warning. Others saved the image and posted it to their account and did not receive the warning.
After a couple of months of trying to fix everything with that account, I decided it is better to create a new account and let that one idle. I could not delete it because my API tokens were associated with that account which the DolfinWX bot uses.
The New Elon Musk Era of Twitter
Wow… what can I say which hasn’t already been said? You can tell what type of leadership it will be when the buffoon walks into headquarters carrying a sink and trying to be funny. He retweeted false information about the Pelosi attach which pretty much set the tone of how Twitter will be ran. This was like jamming a stick into an ant hill and really made all the racists, bigots, alt-rights, etc… come out of the woodwork. I got a notification on a tweet I replied to about an airplane saying how it’d be fun to ride on said airplane. The reply was from a MAGA with some choice words about the company and me.
I knew I could not see myself be a part of the garbage fire Twitter has become. I am starting to wonder if this isn’t just reckless decisions but a way to drive people away and keep the user base he wants. I also wonder if this is a way to drive the value of the company down so it could be re-sold to some other far right individual because their own social network is failing. To borrow a phrase here; I am only asking questions.
It was the end of Twitter for me. First, I shut down the cron jobs for DolfinWX to stop posting “Dolphin AI Thoughts”, the weather, and APRS info to Twitter. Then I deleted all DolfinWX’s Tweets. Next my main account had all it’s Tweets, retweets, and likes deleted. I left a message of abandonment in the profile and a pinned Tweet. I tagged everyone I interacted with on a frequent basis and let them know I could be found on meow.social/web/@FinnleyDolfin.
Next steps are to figure out how to get DolfinWX to interact with Mastodon for which I may spin up its own instance since it is a bot.
Here are my suggestions if you are going to delete your Twitter account.
First, don’t delete it because after a certain amount of time your Twitter handle will be available again and someone on that platform can take it and start to impersonate you. It is also good to leave it active with information on what other platforms your followers can find you. I also wonder if it hurts valuation if there are a lot of inactive accounts on the service.
Second, use a service to delete all of your Tweets, Retweets, likes, and media. What I found odd is even though I deleted a Tweet which contained a picture the picture still remained under media. Use different services to scan your account and delete posts. Do it again every day for a few days until all posts are gone.
Third, verify all your Tweets have been deleted by searching from:<your username>. If any Tweets come up, either delete them manually or try the Tweet delete service again.
Fourth, go through all your settings and make sure any location, marketing, interests, etc… are toggled off. Make sure your email preferences are set the way you want them to be set. I left mine to notify me if anyone sends me a DM just in case. Most importantly enable 2FA with the app option.
Fifth, if possible, get a different mobile number to attach to the account instead of your primary mobile number. This is just me being paranoid, but if there’s a data breach having phone numbers associated with the accounts in the current political climate is scary to think about.
Lastly, update your profile with a message that the account has been abandoned and where you now can be found.
Leave a Reply