How to delete your X account after Elon Musk’s site helps fuel far-right riots

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After misinformation fueled far-right riots amid a surge in hate speech on X, some have questioned whether it is time to close their accounts.

Labour minister Jess Phillips labelled the platform “a place of misery”, while Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram, said it is time for politicians to consider leaving the platform.

X owner Elon Musk used his platform to attack prime minister Keir Starmer after writing that “civil war is inevitable” in the UK due to “incompatible cultures”.

Mr Musk, who bought Twitter in 2020, made a series of jokes about UK policing, in particular regarding the country’s approach to inciting violence on social media. Responding to reports that a person had been charged for a post on Facebook, he wrote: “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”

Users leaving X in recent weeks range from the singer Paloma Faith to the NHS’s Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.

The number of active users has declined on the app since Mr Musk took over in 2022 (renaming it from Twitter shortly after). In 2023, the number of users worldwide fell from 368 million to 359 million, and is projected to fall again this year. The US billionaire has made a number of changes to the app, including adding a paid premium option and increased advertising.

Data from Google shows that searches for “delete Twitter” and “delete X” peaked in the UK last week, and remain around 200 percent higher than the average over the past year.

Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram’s constituency covers Southport, where three children were killed last month in an attack widely misattributed on social media to an asylum seeker, sparking hate speech and helping to fuel the far-right riots.

He told Politics Home: “It’s just vile. It [X] really is in the gutter and something needs to happen.

“The time is approaching where we’ve got to all examine whether we should, en masse, withdraw from it and for there to be a different platform.”

Speaking at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival about X over the weekend, Ms Phillips said: “Fundamentally for me now I think that I am sort of done with it. I don’t wish to fish in that particular pond any more.”

She added: “I used to be massively addicted to Twitter. I have got a very addictive personality. I was massively addicted to it.

“The only power we now have over what is becoming a bit despotic is that we opt out of it. You vote with your feet in this instance rather than pen and paper.”

Since buying the site, Mr Musk has championed X as a platform for free speech.

Before you delete your Twitter / X account, you first have to deactivate it. This is easy to do in the mobile app or on desktop, but the two are slightly different.

First, navigate to ‘Settings and Privacy’. On desktop, this comes under the ‘More’ button. Then find the ‘Your Account’ section. This should appear automatically, as it is the top option. At the bottom of this screen you will see the option to ‘Deactivate your account’.

A screen will appear, explaining the conditions of deactivation. If you want to proceed, click the red ‘Deactivate’ button.

However, your account will not be permanently deleted at this point. It will remain deactivated for 30 days, and only after this point will it disappear completely. For premium users, you can choose to keep your account inactive for up to 12 months.

If you want to make a new account with the same username or email address, you will have to wait until after the deactivation period is over. To get around this, users can change their username or email address before deactivating, meaning they will not have to wait.

If you want to download your X data, you must do this before deactivating your account. It will be inaccessible after the account is deleted.