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Elon Musk announced Monday that Twitter is cleaning up accounts that haven’t been active at all for several years.
Users immediately shared their concerns about losing accounts of their loved ones, noting that the tweets are a way to memorialize them.
It appears that the purge is targeting lurkers who use the platform but rarely share updates.
Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted since 2021, even though he was banned for over a year, and Apple has never shared anything on his account.
Twitter’s policy requires users to log into their account at least once every 30 days to avoid permanent deletion due to prolonged inactivity.
Elon Musk announced on Monday that Twitter is “deleting accounts that haven’t been active at all for several years”
Andrew Tate, an internet personality who has just been released from prison on suspicion of organized crime and human trafficking, shared his concerns about the purge.
‘Very good idea. But my father died and I still read his account every day. Please keep him active,” Tate tweeted.
Other people are asking Musk to find a way to memorialize the accounts.
While many users fear that their loved ones’ accounts will be part of the purge, those users can export an archive of the tweets if they have access to the account.
Go to your Account Settings by clicking the ‘more’ icon in the navigation bar and selecting Your Account from the menu.
Then click Download an archive of your data.
Another option is to see All My Tweets, link the website to your account and then enter a person’s Twitter handle.
All My Tweets will create a file of that account’s last 3,200 shared tweets, which you can then download, save, or print – but only if their account isn’t private.
The announcement has also been met with some excitement – deleting such accounts would free up long coveted usernames.
But how people can boast these names is not confirmed.
Musk warned that the move would dramatically drop users’ followers.
Trump was removed from Twitter on January 8, 2021 due to “the risk that the US president would use the platform to incite further violence.”
Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted since 2021, even though he was banned for over a year, and Apple has never shared anything on his account.
Users immediately shared their concern about losing accounts of their loved ones, noting that the tweets are a way to memorialize them
However, the ban was lifted in November 2022, about a month after Musk acquired the platform.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s account will be deleted.
However, Apple has never shared a single tweet since joining in September 2011.
The account has more than nine million followers, but doesn’t follow a single person — not even CEO Tim Cook.
Twitter has threatened a purge on several occasions to kick off inactive users and let others take control — one of the latest announcements was in 2019.
Musk has made several major changes since purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in October 2021, including laying off more than 80 percent of its original staff.
The CEO has also overhauled the platform, specifically allowing everyone to be verified by paying for Twitter Blue and pulling old check marks from those who don’t want to pay the monthly fee.
The old check marks disappeared last month.
Under the original blue tick, Twitter had about 400,000 verified users, including Hollywood actors, top athletes, journalists, human rights activists and public authorities.
In the past, the checks meant Twitter had verified that users were who they said they were, as a method of preventing impersonation and the spread of misinformation.
But now anyone can buy a Twitter Blue subscription, and it no longer means the user is verified — other than confirming a phone number.