Twitter will start deleting user accounts that have been inactive for more than six months, unless they make use of them before the December 11 deadline.
Deletion will also include those who died unless a relative or other person can use the deceased’s account.
This is the first time that Twitter has deleted inactive accounts on such a large scale.
He said he was doing so because inactive users could not really comply with his new privacy regulations.
Also, according to a Twitter representative, this will improve its reliability, as by reducing the number of inactive accounts that appear as “followers”, a user will stop feeling unjustifiably important. He denied that the initiative was taken to “release” usernames.
The deletion process will be gradual and will start from accounts outside the US, according to the BBC. Twitter has sent emails to users of accounts affected by the deletions, and will also send new messages when the deletion date approaches.
However, Twitter has not yet revealed how many accounts meet the deletion criteria so far, but it is estimated that they are a few million.
The deletion will not change anything in the number of users that the social networking platform periodically announces, as it only includes active daily users. According to the latest data from September, Twitter has about 145 million users who use it at least once a day.
As for the dead users, unlike Facebook, Twitter does not allow – for reasons of memory – to “freeze” the account of the deceased and to prohibit its further use.
Twitter will allow the account activity of a deceased person to continue, as long as someone else has the ability to keep him or her active, having previously accepted the platform’s new privacy policy.
Accounts that have been created for archival reasons, such as @ POTUS44, which is a collection of “tweets” made by President Barack Obama during his tenure, are also being deleted.
Finally, automated accounts (bots) will be affected, as long as their owners do not log-in by December 11th.
Source: RES-EIA
