
Marc Andreessen suddenly deletes all his tweets, goes on Twitter break - smb06
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/25/marc-andreessen-suddenly-deletes-all-his-tweets-goes-on-twitter-break/
======
danso
There's a bot that's captured the last 70,000 of Andreessen's tweets:
[https://twitter.com/pmarca_retweet](https://twitter.com/pmarca_retweet)

What I find a little bizarre is that the @pmarca account is still listed as
having 189 tweets, yet only the Pinned Tweet showed. Earlier last night, his
account was listed as having 100K+ tweets and still only showed the Pinned
tweet:
[https://twitter.com/2bluesc/status/779821454531497985](https://twitter.com/2bluesc/status/779821454531497985)

Is this just a caching issue on Twitter's side? I was hoping it'd be a new
level of profile privacy: hide all your tweets, but allow for the publishing
of the pinned tweet.

~~~
firasd
Yeah it would be nice if social networks had a 'lockdown' button so all your
public stuff can be hidden mid-controversy or if you were a target of
harassment and/or otherwise inquisitive folks.

The real question is, how did he do this without running into rate limits?
What app did he use? Which portfolio company's elevated API access did he
commandeer? #APIPrivilege

~~~
icelancer
Can't you just make your account private as a "lockdown" feature?

~~~
ttam
I believe that existing followers will still see be able to see the timeline

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mikeknoop
In case you're curious what tool he used to delete them: deletealltweets.com

The only reason I know is because that software auto-tweeted "I am deleting
all my tweets using ..." and then got deleted a few seconds later.

~~~
ttam
interesting, apparently the software doesn't unlike "the likes", so we can
still see all 267k likes
[https://twitter.com/pmarca/likes](https://twitter.com/pmarca/likes)

~~~
yitchelle
Is deleting account the only option here?

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tonetheman
Either that or he has something to do with the possible upcoming sale/buy of
twitter?

~~~
exstudent2
This is my guess. He probably knows a sale is happening and doesn't want to
provide value to the new owner. Probably because he has a competitive
portfolio company or something.

~~~
RickS
That sounds petty and spiteful in a way I wouldn't expect from him, especially
so publicly.

Also, as valuable as his presence is, I can't imagine a buyer of the size
needed to buy Twitter would be like "we'll give you n Billion, but only if
pmarca stays on point"

~~~
exstudent2
> That sounds petty and spiteful in a way I wouldn't expect from him,
> especially so publicly.

He was pretty notorious for blocking anyone with an opposing viewpoint on
Twitter, so this seems in line with that.

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WheelsAtLarge
I suspect he feels there's a conflict of interest with his business and
twitter. I bet he's somehow involved in twitter's buyout/takeover. Twitter is
going private or someone is buying it and Andreessen is somehow involved. My
guess.

Twitter is here to stay they just have to figure out how to make it work
better and make it pay. I think going private is the best way to innovate
without having to look over your shoulder for unhappy investors. Just look at
WeChat for ideas.

~~~
gjolund
"Twitter is here to stay"

Want to take bets on that?

~~~
allenleein
I def won't bet on "stay".

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cyberferret
I liked that pmarca always retweeted @pmarca tweets that were positive and
negative towards him. Basically unfiltered viewpoints from opposite angles.

I've heard that he has a large ego, but behaviour like that, plus the fact
that he routinely 'likes' and retweets messages from people outside the tech
elite circle (myself included) seems to disprove that... or is that just MY
ego now kicking into conformance rationalisation mode?!?!? ;-)

~~~
idlewords
He also blocked pretty much anyone who got under his skin. Those he blocked
were no longer able to see the stupid shit he said without special effort. In
that way, it was an effective way of silencing critics.

~~~
cyberferret
Ah yes, I forgot about his rapid blocking of dissenters. Then again, I don't
allow particularly obnoxious people into my household either, so I can't
really blame anyone for not electing not to put up with
abuse/complaints/harrassment if they don't wish to.

Once again, I am guessing it is a battle of egos - nothing irritates the ego
more than being silenced when it feels it has something to say. :) [NB - not
directed at you directly, just a general observation of the Twitterverse]

~~~
idlewords
I completely agree with you. I'm all for muting. The issue is the semantics of
blocking in Twitter, which prevents those blocked from seeing subsequent
tweets.

You end up with situations where public figures can limit their audience to
only those who agree with them, which isn't healthy for anyone.

~~~
talmand
Especially pathetic are the blockers that continue to discuss the people they
blocked.

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ikeboy
Right after last week's South park made quitting Twitter a plot point.
Interesting.

~~~
notgood
And if I member correctly his profile pic its a South Park style drawing of
himself[0].

[0]
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/529529964178075648/7rgC...](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/529529964178075648/7rgC9uv__400x400.png)

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bigtunacan
I've always liked the ability to "follow" anyone on Twitter. Unlike Facebook
which I see as a way to communicate with friends and family, Twitter allows me
to follow interesting people who might post interesting and insightful
thoughts on topics I'm interested in. Then they limit it to the length of an
SMS so I can get no more than a sound bite. I basically abandoned the platform
as a waste of time.

~~~
smb06
I have loved twitter for the same reason. It has allowed me to face
conversations with and forge friendships with people that I otherwise would
not have met in my daily life.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Is 140 characters enough to call them conversations? I would expound on the
virtues of precise arguments and establishing context, but im@140

~~~
smb06
You are not limited to one single tweet only. I've had multiple, meaningful
conversations that span across multiple tweets. As many as needed to convey
the message - not limited to just 140.

~~~
talmand
The fact one has to convey a thought over multiple tweets shows the stupidity
of the limit.

~~~
smb06
How is it different from having to convey a thought over multiple sentences?

~~~
talmand
Vastly different unless the multiple sentences has a character limit. Multiple
sentences tend to get lumped together in a group, let's call it a paragraph,
and is easy to read in total. A thought spread out over multiple tweets with
spacing between each, and in some cases broken up by other tweets, is
difficult to read and follow. We'll skip over the problem of actually
following a multi-person discussion in this manner.

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kebback
Bummer that guy had some notably annoying tweets

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guelo
I wonder if those bots that preserve pmarca's tweets run afoul of twitter
policy. Twitter previously shutdown a service that preserved tweets that were
deleted by politicians.

~~~
thwarted
I think that if you have a verified account, you shouldn't be able to delete
tweets. This would be a decent tradeoff for being recognized as a public
figure, of which I think deletion of content runs afoul of.

~~~
kkirsche
I'm sorry but I don't agree. In my opinion, everyone on a platform should have
equal rights, within their user class (user, staff, admin, etc)

~~~
angry-hacker
Your comment contradicts itself since mods themselves have more power than
regular users.

Life is never fair and people are never equal.

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hobo_mark
This bot used to archive his "tweetstorms" (whose origin coincides with the
invention of that word)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/pngmarca](https://mobile.twitter.com/pngmarca)

but it looks like it stopped working some time ago.

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boona
I wonder if it's due to their censorship policy lately. Facebook seems to have
been doing the same to a lesser degree, but not so openly.

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Tycho
really? damn. one of the best. one time I replied to a tweet and he responded
a few seconds later. it's like he was connected to the twittersphere 24/7

~~~
hashkb
Sounds awful for him.

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draw_down
Not a bad idea if you ask me.

------
chirau
Marc is probably the only guy on Twitter who could get away with typing up a
whole story in parts on that site.

------
bilbobeer
Last fall ( october 2015 ) twitter started mandating your real mobile number
(sms confirmation) to logon, so I deleted my account. I think I had over a
1,000 followers, so what. The case of anonymity was taken away last year. I
suspect with Twitter being for sale, that the sale of 'confirmed live humans'
to target for their interest and profile is more valuable then millions of
anonymous.

I deleted all of my facebook accounts more than 5+ years ago. About the same
time they went to 'real id'.

These days you can't even open an account on google without your mobile phone.
I was amazed running youtube on my samsung that it let me create a google
account, which is mandatory to run youtube, without a mobile, then the next
night I ran the youtube again and it asked for my phone number, so I deleted
the android youtube,

Much of the developer tools now require your credit-card just to download, ...
funny that they're going way beyond 'real id' to 'Real Orwell'. With the
credit card, they can link your FICO, and that is worth some real money, to
know a person interest, and net worth.

I suspect in time that people who refuse to give out their mobile numbers and
credit cards will be denied developer privileges. I think the line of
reasoning goes that 'code' is too valuable to give to the anonymous people.

Long ago Zuckerberg said "Only an idiot would use Facebook", I concur, using
computer since 1960's, I started with punch card on OS/360 IBM, most mostly
machine language, then jumped to APL in 1970, then Unix mid 70's. Since day
one, I never used my real-name for anything online (tcp-ip), to this day I
find it a privilege to google my own name and find nothing. I think that Marc
has just joined this club, the club of freedom knowing that they know nothing.

Don't give them anything, not your real name, not your phone ( tracking device
), not your credit-card ( scores,IRS ). Now in China they give a number to
every citizen indicating his worthiness, the FICO or credit score in USA is
much the same, its always been an indication of a well behaved citizen, a
lemming.

Let's hope now with all his money that Marc finds a life, maybe he can go live
on some mountain and become spiritual and disconnect from all electronic
device for a time, and learn the real meaning of being human.

~~~
ikeboy
I believe Google only requires a phone number if you're using a proxy, and for
good reason: they've had a ton of abuse from proxies.

You can buy some PVAs from someone on Fiverr using bitcoin if you really want
to stay anonymous, or if you try hard enough you could probably find an
unblocked proxy, or use a library or something.

------
smb06
Twitter is losing its most valuable assets - those that drove the most
engagement.

~~~
ams6110
It was always just a fad.

~~~
inopinatus
Twitter revealed an unmet need for global stream-of-consciousness and lowered
the bar for online participation to the lowest currently known setting.

~~~
rdtsc
I think it is a bit like that curse "May you get what you wish for". So now
after people got the global stream-of-consciousness in tidbits of 140
character with lowest bar for online participation, they are thinking "This is
a terrible. Who would want this..."

