Twitter will delete user accounts that have been inactive for over six months starting on 11 December, according to the BBC. Twitter said the move is because anyone not logged in recently has been unable to agree to its updated privacy policies.
The result will be a lot of dormant accounts removed from the platform permanently, including accounts of people who have died in the last six months – unless someone logs into their account within that time to register activity.
Accounts that have not tweeted for a time will not be affected, but if it has not been accessed then they will be deleted. While Twitter has removed and deleted accounts in the past, this is the biggest scale of deletion yet.
The BBC said a Twitter spokesperson suggested the move would “improve credibility by removing dormant accounts from people’s follower counts, something which may give a user an undue sense of importance.”
“As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter,” the firm said.
“Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log-in and use Twitter when they register an account, as stated in our inactive accounts policy.”
The below screenshot is an example of the emails dormant accounts have received warning of their removal on 11 December.
Some people are seeing it as an opportunity to grab desirable usernames that were taken in the early days of Twitter by accounts that are now inactive – for example single Christian names, surnames, and single words. Twitter insists the move has nothing to do with freeing up available usernames.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.