Twitter housekeeping

Twitter’s chaotic first month under new owner Elon Musk has inspired some social media housekeeping among users concerned that the service could fray.

Musk has decimated Twitter’s workforce, leading to concerns about security and privacy vulnerabilities or an uptick in toxic content. Here’s what you can do to protect your account:

ENABLE MULTI-STEP AUTHENTICATION

If you only use your login and password to sign in to Twitter, it’s important, especially now, to add an extra step to the process so it becomes more difficult for hackers to access your account.

SHUT DOWN THIRD-PARTY ACCESS

You can revoke permissions to third-party sites and apps through your Twitter account. That’s because if there is a potential security problem with Twitter’s API (or Application Programming Interface, which lets third parties access Twitter data to create apps that work with Twitter, for instance), fewer people working at the company means patching it up will inevitably take longer.

DOWNLOAD YOUR ARCHIVE

It might take some time, but you can download your Twitter “archive” if you’d like to ensure it’s preserved — just in case. This tool is only available on the desktop version of Twitter, in the “Your account” section of settings.