Elon Musk’s Twitter Will Purge & Archive Inactive Accounts
Written by djfrosty on May 9, 2023
Source: Christopher Furlong / Getty / Twitter
If you haven’t used your Twitter account in a while and plan on keeping it, you better log on now because Elon Musk wants to get rid of it.
Elon Musk said on his janky Twitter app to warn his followers and other users, “You will probably see follower count drop” after revealing that the platform will begin “purging” accounts that “had no activity at all for several years.”
The announcement didn’t reveal an exact date for this purge, but you can bet one is on the way from Twitter in the form of a blog post.
Musk’s tweet about inactive accounts comes after reportedly threatening to reassign NPR’s Twitter handle after the news outlet ditched Twitter for other social media platforms after labeling NPR “state-affiliated media,” putting it in the same category as Russia’s RT.
Per Engadget’s reporting, Musk told NPR in an email exchange that it’s Twitter’s policy to “recycle handles that are definitively dormant,” and the “same policy applies to all accounts.”
Elon Musk Says His Company Will Archive Abandoned Accounts
Responding to his tweet, a paid subscriber to Musk’s profile “strongly” urged Musk not to purge inactive accounts. “Deleting the output of inactive accounts would be terrible. I still see people liking ten year old tweets I made, but the threads are already often fragmented with deleted or unavailable tweets. Don’t make it worse!”
Musk replied to the user by revealing his platform would archive the “abandoned” accounts.
Currently, the platform’s policy page on inactive accounts says to “log in at least every 30 days,” adding it will delete accounts due to inactivity.
We shall see if Musk keeps his word on this policy update.
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Photo: Christopher Furlong / Getty