If you’re going to leave Twitter, please don’t
a) delete your account, because someone bad will steal your handle
b) delete your Tweets, because their existence doesn’t help Elon and it’s like burning the Library of Alexandria.
Twitter captures a real-time historical record of a couple of decades and the billions of individuals’ snapshots are irreplaceable.
The thought of all those tweets being erased makes me feel physically sick.
[please pass on if you agree.]
@timbray I agree with A but (for me) not with B. I have long delete all of my twits and likes after N months for the same reason that I close comments on my blog posts after N months: nothing good can come of those late replies: no community, only bots and monetization.
Anything of substance (you know, the *quality* fart jokes) are on my blog. I'm not one of those "buckle up" goofballs. I know HTML and several other languages.
@jwz Not giving any more.
But my real-time comments on, for example, the Afghan war and Sinead O’Connor tunes, are not worth much in a spreadsheet but them plus millions of others along similarly random lines probably have stories to tell that I'd hate to lose.
@timbray @jwz indeed, but I think the only hope for real continuity of that data in is Twitter's own DBs, where likely nothing is ever truly deleted. But it's hard to know if there will be continuity months from now, let alone decades or centuries.
I certainly can't fault individuals from rescinding the use of their own data in this mess.
Tim Bray
jwz
Kelsey Jordahl