========
 How To
========


First, you are done.

Next, you delete all your Tweets.

You can use a program
to delete your Tweets.

You probably should use a program
if you have written a lot of them.

Me, I deleted my Tweets by hand.

"Delete",
"confirm",
gone.

"Delete",
"confirm",
gone.

Over and over.
One Tweet at a time.

I wrote my first Tweet in 2009.
That was the first Tweet I deleted.

I worked forward through time,
deleting one Tweet after another.

It took a little while,
but it was easy to do.

Next, you delete all your "likes".

I did this manually too.

A program can help you remove them
if you have a lot of "likes".

Do not be too proud
to accept help
from a program.

Remember your first step:
you are done.
So don't give up now.

One at a time,
I removed all of those
little red hearts
I once placed
underneath Tweets written
by people I know.

Do not be sad.
Do not be afraid.

These are entries
in a database.
We are simply
reconciling a database
with reality.

What is reality?

I don't like Twitter.

That's reality.

Next, you withdraw your consent.

All of those applications
you allowed to rummage around
in your Twitter account
for their own purposes:
they don't get to do that anymore.

Apparently,
I had given, like, eight applications
permission to access my Twitter data
in one way or another
over the years.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Lesson learned.
Permission denied.

Next, you hide your face.

Twitter wouldn't let me
have no profile picture.
They need to see me, I suppose.

Well, I see them too.

Instead of having no profile picture at all,
I replaced my Twitter profile picture
with a desktop background I had handy--
a geometric shape
on a bland, blue field.

Next, you delete your account.

You click.
And you confirm.

Finally, you are done.

Twitter says
that they will hold onto my data
for thirty days.

Twitter says
if I change my mind
within thirty days,
they will reinstate my account
and everything will be
just as it was before.

All will be forgiven.

Twitter says
they are sorry to see me go.

I am glad to know
how Twitter feels.

Twitter didn't ask me
how I feel though.

If they ever do,
I will say that I feel
like when you open the second window
and the breeze comes in.