So the TL;DR here is simply: please unfollow and disregard any account on Twitter/X that claims to be me. I am not posting on that disgraced platform, and never will in the future. Earlier this year, my old username was taken over by a bot— one that I suspect was actually installed and run by Twitter itself— that spewed, with my name and profile, a deluge of apparently AI-generated nonsense that I would never say myself. I’ve been able to get that content removed for now, but with Musk at the helm, who knows what the platform might do in the future.
The fall of Twitter
An eon ago, I gave a talk at RailsConf 2013 on philosophical issues around technology, and stirred the pot a bit with my opinion of Twitter. It was, I thought, a platform with a net negative effect on culture due to how it intentionally filled public discourse with noise, and at the same time, an example of how technology controls us since I felt professionally obligated to maintain a presence on it anyway.
That was, of course, many years ago, at the height of Twitter’s popularity and influence, long before Elon Musk’s takeover and the subsequent business, technical, and political issues now surrounding it. You can imagine what I think about it now.
(And yes, I’m intentionally deadnaming Twitter. Its new identity is what is dead to me: a zombification of what was once, if a societal net-negative, at least an interesting and influential techno-cultural phenomenon.)
So it should come as no surprise that I was one of perhaps many who chose to delete their accounts after the recent election and regime change in the US.
My subsequent experience should serve as a bit of a cautionary tale for anyone else considering that step in the future.
The consequences of deleting your Twitter account
In hindsight, I probably should have read the terms of service more closely and thought about the potential consequences. Among other things, Twitter’s terms of service state:
Once your account is deleted after the 30-day deactivation window, your username will be available for registration by other X accounts.
(From How to deactivate your account, retrieved Aug 4, 2025)
This should be an instant red flag, as it implies that any entity, including a hostile one, can usurp your old username and impersonate you.
And sure enough, a bit over a month after I deleted my account, I suddenly noticed a deluge of new content on it, from puzzling announcements of the imminent commercial release of random open source projects, to shills of nonexistent memecoins, to retweets of accounts that real me might find disreputable or even offensive. Worse, the account still had all its previous followers, and the description and mug photo remained as I had originally set it up. In all, it was nearly impossible to tell the account had been deleted, unless you know me and know what actually to expect of my posting habits.
In other words, there was now a Twitter account masquerading as me, with content that was at best embarrassing, and at worst reputation-damaging. I’m also not alone in this; a quick Reddit search reveals a broad swath of similar experiences.
Now, I do not know for certain what actually took place with the account. It is possible a real user took it over, although for what purpose I can’t fathom. However, I suspect Twitter itself simply decided to spew AI-generated garbage from deleted but well-followed accounts in an attempt to maintain the illusion of activity and relevance. Which, if true, would be an interesting instance of Twitter violating their own terms of use, by creating what is effectively an impersonation account.
I eventually complained to Twitter support. To their credit, they disabled the account within a few days. The account page now says the account is “suspended” for “rule violation” which I, uhh, guess is better than before. But now I have zero trust in what they might do next. What is to prevent Musk’s Twitter-zombie from unsuspending the account in the future and proceeding to impersonate me again?
Where to go from here
If you still for some reason have a Twitter account, and are still following my old username, please unfollow it. It is not me, and if there was any remote possibility of my ever rejoining the platform before, there isn’t anymore.
And if you do still have an account and are considering deleting it, consider this a bit of a cautionary tale. It might be a good idea to take steps to strip the account of any ties to yourself and your profile before taking that action.
Recent political, social, and tech industry developments have been difficult to say the least. I can consider myself lucky that I haven’t (yet) been impacted as deeply as some. The Musk-ification of Twitter and subsequent impact on people like myself who once felt obligated to use it for work, has been annoying, but at least not life- or livelihood-threatening. I pray for those not so lucky, and hope that, sometime soon, we’ll all come back to our senses and turn away from the insanity that seems to have gripped us.
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