I have been using Twitter actively since 2006 and have had the best of times as well as the worst of times there. It’s very likely to stop existing as we know it very soon, which is a real shame. It didn’t have to be that way. I would like to write more about what it’s meant to me and the world but for now I want to share this urgent advice that I wrote up for my colleagues this morning.
The Twitter situation is not a drill. It could stop working at any moment, and until it does the nastiest trolls will be running amok. I recommend you do a few things on your personal accounts:
- Put alternate ways for people to follow you in your bio. Could be Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, TikTok, Tumblr, Discord, whatever.
- Turn on 2-factor authentication if you haven’t already. You must use an app (like 1Password or Google Authenticator) and not SMS to authenticate. Also enable Password reset protect.
- Request an archive of your Twitter data. You will have to authenticate for this by e-mail and not SMS. It can take a day or two but you’ll get an e-mail when it’s ready to download.
- Consider making your tweets private so that you have to manually approve new followers.
- You may want to deactivate your account, but DO NOT DELETE it. That could allow others to take your old name.
- Even if you’re not signed up for Mastodon, run this FediFinder tool and download a list of your follows’ addresses on Mastodon and other federated services. (You can decide whether to use it later.)