Tim BrayDec 16, 2022

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.]

Show threadMike ElyDec 16, 2022
@timbray my approach was to download my twitter data (in the hopes that it might someday be updatable) and null out my account but keep it active. That way if sanity regains I can simply upload my archive and get back to it.
Show threadTrowzersDec 16, 2022
@me @timbray
I requested my data but they never sent me anything. How long did it take to get yours?
Show threadtoybuilder
@trowzers @me @timbray it took almost two weeks for me. 11 days, I think?
Dec 17, 2022 at 2:05pmWeb
Show threadTrowzersDec 18, 2022
@toybuilder @me @timbray
Well, this time it worked within 24 hours. But never saw a notification the first time. Must have done it at a time when that stuff was broken. But now I find that although the deleted tweet data is there, they don't display in the list of tweets via the HTML viewer, which is annoying :P