I’m leaving Twitter. Soon. Promise. No, seriously.

Being a bear of very little willpower, I mostly avoid resolutions, New Year’s or otherwise, but there is one I am determined to uphold in 2020.

See that? I could not even carry one squishy policy through an entire paragraph.

Anyway, in the year 2020, a presidential election year, I will at some point rid myself of Twitter, thus providing a major boost to my mental health. More importantly, I will rid Twitter of me, a wondrous blessing to untold thousands.

It won’t be easy. Cold turkey is out of the question. Without Twitter, how will I know whether the Washington Capitals have canceled the morning skate? Where will I access pictures of the latest caloric blitzkrieg concession item coming to a ballpark near you? Where will I go for digital spitting matches among the riotously misinformed? How will the Pentagon and I know which country we’ve pulled out of overnight?

I’m not sure I can function in the world of actual reality, where, when a person tells me, as they doubtless will,

“You’re an idiot,” I won’t even know if he or she neglected the apostrophe.

No, you can’t rip Twitter away like a scab. I’ve been on it for about 10 years, meaning I’m totally compromised by its addictive algorithms. On every visit I enjoy it less, scrolling doggedly for something that will trigger outrage or fear, and Twitter loves me for it.

For a time, the feeling was mutual. I followed comics, scholars, musicians, artists, sports entities, reliable media outlets, respected commentators, esteemed colleagues and people I don’t know but who always make me laugh or think or both. Back then, there was no shortage of retweeted malignant idiocy, but the only really aggravating feature of the young social media platform was the tendency by some users to assume they’d written the rules.

“You shouldn’t block anybody,” somebody said. “It’s cowardly.”

What are you, the Commissioner of Twitter?

I’ll block you if I don’t like your tone, and I can’t even hear it, OK? I block more people before 9 a.m. than the

Army does all day. If you took every offensive lineman in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, they would not have blocked as many people as I have. Frankly, the block is Twitter’s best feature. Off with their heads! That’s my policy.

Seriously, I shouldn’t have to read your crap, nor you mine. Block away.

I even remember my first tweet: “Happy John Lennon’s birthday everybody. Imagine all the people living life in peace.”

Or my first notification: “Yeah well imagine you suck!”

Sooo Twitter.

Now, of course, the stakes are at their all-time highest. Something wicked this way comes. The election looms and there’s probably no way it won’t be the second presidential election in a row to be poisoned by foreign interference in social media. If nothing else, when I finally exit the platform, I’ll be able to say, “Russia, if you’re listening, I am not. OK?” Nor will I be listening to Ukraine, China and any other nation state or sinister actor the president invites to bastardize the results between now and November.

Americans who read the Mueller Report (likely fewer than a dozen), know that Russia, through its Internet Research Agency, weaponized Twitter so expertly in 2016 that it actually arranged “confederate rallies” and organized “Kids for Trump” among other trolling efforts. Some of these meetings organized by phony Russian Twitter accounts drew hundreds of supporters.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing can no longer be laughed off. If you think Twitter is irresponsible in this way, know that Facebook and others are demonstrably worse. All of these platforms harbor the potential for miraculous communication and profound societal good, but the downside is so dark as to be almost too dark.

“Communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online,” Tim

Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and cofounder of the World Wide Web Foundation, wrote for The New York Times barely a month ago. “Scammers use the web to steal identities, stalkers use it to harass and intimidate their victims, and bad actors subvert democracy using clever digital tactics. The use of targeted political ads in the United States’ 2020 presidential campaign and in elections elsewhere threatens once again to undermine voters’ understanding and choices. We are at a tipping point. How we respond to this abuse will determine whether the web lives up to its potential as a global force for good or leads us into a digital dystopia.”

Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do by abandoning Twitter, avoid digital dystopia. That sounds like good advice any time.

Sacha Baron Cohen, who reliably proves that we can laugh and cringe simultaneously, recently delivered one of the most incisive speeches on this topic to the Anti-Defamation League. I urge you to Google it, if only to see the hellacious verbal flogging

Mr. Cohen gives Google, Facebook and others.

“Today around the world, demagogues appeal to our worst instincts,” he said in November. “Conspiracy theories once confined to the fringe are going mainstream. It’s as if the Age of Reason — the era of evidential argument — is ending, and now knowledge is delegitimized and scientific consensus is dismissed. Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in retreat, and autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march. Hate crimes are surging, as are murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.”

Only last weekend, someone with a machete burst into a suburban New York home during a Hanukkah celebration, attacking five, slashing and battering one old man into a coma.

It was just weeks after Mr. Cohen quoted Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”