Elon Musk took to Twitter on Monday to alert users that the platform is undergoing a purge of inactive accounts that have been dormant for several years.
In his tweet, Musk stated, “We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop.”
In response to concerns raised by video game developer John Carmack, who worried that content from inactive accounts might be entirely deleted during the purge, Musk assured that the accounts would be archived.
However, Musk did not provide specific details regarding the extent of the purge, including the exact duration an account must remain inactive before being archived. Additionally, he did not clarify whether or how users could reactivate their dormant accounts.
Musk emphasized the importance of freeing up abandoned handles in a subsequent tweet, without elaborating further.
Twitter’s current policy regarding inactive accounts stipulates that users must log in at least once every 30 days to avoid the risk of being “permanently removed.” Inactivity is defined based on login activity.
According to the long-standing policy, inactive accounts generally retain their usernames, and their handles are not released to active users.
