Why You Should Delete Old Tweets

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You’re probably not the same person you were when you first signed up for Twitter. At the time, you might have just started high school, or graduated from college, or were in your peak partying phase, but don’t worry you’re not the only one — and don’t forget, Twitter has definitely evolved since it first launched too. It started as a simple micro-blogging service and has since transformed into a global communications platform that instantly connects millions of people all around the world. 

Twitter brings together groups of people that share a common interest, so they can join in on a collective conversation. From celebrities and brands to the average Joe, every Twitter user is able to connect. You can contribute to the thoughts and reactions of millions of people who could be watching the NFL draft or the premiere of a new series, for example. But do some of those tweets, that are published in the heat of the moment, really need to live on your profile forever? 

Just take a moment

If you looked at your personal Twitter feed right now, how would you feel? Without context, months or years later, would you still understand/agree with what you’re saying or would you just have a big question mark above your head? 

It’s okay to feel detached from a tweet you made years ago, your personal mindset has likely evolved since then. So why are you allowing these tweets, that represent the old you, float around the internet today? 

It’s time to delete those old Tweets, but which ones?

It’s always a struggle to decide whether you should keep a tweet or just delete it. Sometimes a tweet can be completely meaningless to others but have a lot of personal memories attached to it for yourself. Similarly, you might have tweets that have tons of likes and retweets, but they no longer hold any significant meaning for you. 

Here are a couple of benchmarks you can use to help determine if you should keep a tweet or delete it: 

Keep

• Personal value: These tweets are the ones you have some sort of emotional attachment to, this might include an image or video. 
• Harmless jokes: If you’ve made a harmless joke that is just plain funny, keep that on your profile. But delete any jokes that could be misunderstood and be harmful to you or your personal brand. 

Maybe

• Out-of-context tweets: These are one-off tweets that you made once in your life that no longer have any meaning for you or align with who you are. 
• Old job: You might be shifting gears in your life and have decided to change industries, but in the past, you’ve posted about your old job. It might be worthwhile to go through these and see which tweets can still have relevance or significance.  

Delete, delete, delete!

• Insensitive tweets: This should be self-explanatory, if you’ve tweeted anything that’s offensive to people or a community, that’s got to go. 
• False tweets: Have you ever used your Twitter account to spread lies? Or tweeted something before fully researching the facts? This should definitely be removed from your profile.
• Not your words: Are you pasting someone else’s tweets as your own? This is also a hard no.  

Take the dive

Now that you’ve decided it’s time to make the purge and start actioning your choices, you might be feeling a little sentimental towards your old tweets. Not to worry, you can begin by archiving your tweets before you start to delete them. Simply open Settings and Privacy under more on Twitter, then under data and permissions select, Your Twitter data. There you will find a button that says Request archive, and after you click this button, (give it a minute or two) you’ll receive an email from Twitter with a ZIP file filled with all your old tweets. 

After you’ve done that for your personal memories it’s time to get started! How you go about this is completely up to you. If you know you’ve tweeted some very specific words frequently, you can use the Twitter Advanced Search feature to look for those words you’re thinking of. There you will be able to manually delete the tweets from your profile. 

But, if you’re a busy person like the majority of the population, or you’re just impatient like us, you can try our free social media scanner. Our software will automatically flag any potentially harmful tweets you may have made in the past, and in just a matter of minutes you’ll be able to delete all of your questionable old tweets, and start again with a clean slate.