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As Donald Trump becomes president-elect for the second time, many have begun questioning whether it is time to close their X accounts for good.
The social media service is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, the controversial tech mogul who announced his sudden support for Mr Trump during the 2024 campaign.
The businessman, who also owns Tesla and SpaceX, donated over $132m (£104m) to the Trump campaign and other Republicans in the run-up to the election.
It’s also understood that the businessman has spent a lot of time with the president-elect following his victory.
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The number of active users has declined on the app since Mr Musk took over in October 2022 (renaming it from Twitter shortly after).
From a peak of 368 million active users that year, X’s growth has stood virtually still. It saw 162 million active daily users on US election day – which was the yearly high according to market intelligence site Sensor Tower.
The day after the election, active users had fallen by another 5 million.
The Guardian newspaper announced its decision to stop posting on Mr Musk’s site on 13 November, followed by author Stephen King and TV journalist Don Lemon.
For those thinking of packing up and heading elsewhere to get their social media fix, here’s what you need to know:
Social media alternatives to Twitter / X
Bluesky
Fast becoming the one-to-watch, Bluesky picked up over a million new users in just a week following the US election result. This bump means it has gained 6 million new users in just two months.
However, this has only brought its monthly active user based up to 15 million, quite far shy of X’s
Bluesky’s interface is very similar to Twitter / X’s before Elon Musk took over. It was created in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (who has now left the project) and only became open to all in February.
Unlike X, Bluesky gives users greater control over the algorithm that dictates what they see on their feeds. Unlike the ‘invisible hand’ approach of most social media services, Bluesky aims to let users have greater control over the topics and users they will see.
Threads
Facebook owner Meta launched Threads in 2022 shortly after Mr Musk bought Twitter. It was clearly designed as an alternative to the site, but did not quite steal its user base as some predicted it might.
Unlike Bluesky, Threads has enough active users to rival X, receiving a substantial boost from linking the service to Instagram (also owned by Meta), which boasts 2 billion active monthly users.
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Threads has a similar text-based interface to X, but with some key differences.
Critics have said the the service’s algorithm is slightly overbearing, creating shortcomings when it comes to breaking news – a key feature of X – due to restrictions on ‘political content’.
Mastadon
More different still is Mastadon. Favoured by tech-heads, this is a “decentralized” social media platform – meaning it is made up of hundreds of different servers which users can explore based on their interests.
Anyone can create one of these servers, giving the site a model which may be more familiar to those who use forum sites like Reddit.
Many have praised the service’s ability to allow users to fine tune their experiences. However, others have said the freedom can prove stifling for some entry-level users, who might want to see a bit more of everything.
How to delete your Twitter / X account
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.
