It’s common to see people create accounts on social media platforms and then forget about them or not log in for extended periods. Twitter is aware of this issue and will remove inactive accounts and archive them, CEO Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Monday. The billionaire emphasized that the action is “important to free up abandoned handles.” However, he also noted that users may experience a drop in their follower count due to Twitter purging old accounts.
Twitter has been implementing changes since Musk bought the company last fall and took over as chief executive. For example, the company recently removed the legacy verified blue tick from the profiles of thousands of people, including celebrities, journalists, and prominent politicians. Musk had argued that removing the blue tick would help tackle the problem of bots on the platform. However, that move generated a backlash and criticism from past defenders of the site’s new owner, prompting Musk to promise that future significant policy changes would be subject to an online poll of Twitter users.
In addition to removing inactive accounts, Twitter will also work on ways to memorialize those who have passed away and ensure that spammers or other undesirables aren’t using their names. The company is currently developing this process with the Digital Memorial Foundation.
While the company is cleaning up its account roster, Twitter still encourages users to log in and use their accounts actively. However, the site warns that if an account is inactive for six months, it will be considered inactive and eligible for deletion. Twitter will then send an email notification to the user requesting confirmation of their desire to delete their account.
To avoid having your Twitter or Facebook account deleted, you should always log in and tweet at least once every six months. You can check how active your account is on this official Twitter page, which shows the number of people following you and the average number of daily tweets. To check how active your Twitter account is, you can also access your account dashboard.