Elon Musk says Twitter is purging inactive accounts to ‘free up abandoned handles’

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• Elon Musk said that Twitter will be deleting inactive accounts to make room for new usernames.
• Musk responded to fears that old tweets could be deleted by saying that purged accounts would be archived.
• Musk didn't specify the scope of the sweep and did not mention if accounts that were purged could be reactivated.

Elon Musk informed Twitter users Monday that it is deleting accounts that are inactive since a few years.

Musk tweeted: "We are purging accounts which have not been active for several years. You will likely see the follower count decrease."

Later, he said that the accounts would be "archived" in response to tweets from John Carmack. Carmack was worried that the content of inactive accounts could be removed in bulk during the purge.

Musk did not specify the exact scope of the purge nor how long a user's account must be inactive before it is archived. Musk also did not say how or if people could reactivate inactive accounts.

Musk tweeted a few minutes later, "But it's important to release abandoned handles."

Twitter's inactive account policy states that users must log in to their accounts at least once every thirty days, or they risk being "permanently deleted." Inactivity is defined by whether or not a user logs in to their account.

Inactive accounts are allowed to keep their usernames and handles.

Twitter's automated response to Insider's comment request was a message that didn't address the question.

—————————————————————————————————————————————
By: mloh@insider.com (Matthew Loh)
Title: Elon Musk says Twitter is purging inactive accounts to ‘free up abandoned handles’
Sourced From: www.businessinsider.com/twitter-purge-inactive-accounts-free-up-usernames-elon-musk-2023-5
Published Date: Tue, 09 May 2023 03:16:16 +0000

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