Earlier today I deactivated my Twitter account. Before I did, I tweeted out a thread that read something like this (I may have tweaked it slightly as I copied and pasted it from an email draft into a thread):

I’m gonna shut down my Twitter account for a week, for a start, and maybe longer. In the long run I’m gonna have to be on here for book purposes but since I feel like I keep getting sucked into arguments that 1) are with people I don’t really disagree with on anything when it comes to what a better and fairer and juster world would look like, and 2) would be hard to even explain to someone who isn’t on Twitter a ton, it’s time for a break. As always, I’m reachable at jesse.r.singal@gmail.com and will still be doing stuff for NY Mag and other outlets. See you guys soonish.

A bit later, an alt-right personality infamous for saying “Date rape does not exist” and telling a story about pulling his penis out at the end of a date tweeted gleefully that this occurred because of some action on the part of New York Magazine, where I’m a contributing writer. This is false: I left Twitter specifically because of (what I view as) pointless and draining internecine arguments with folks with whom I have very little substantive political disagreement. My departure, which is temporary, has nothing to do with the alt-right personality in question, nor with my position at New York Magazine. That is all.