Elon Musk: Twitter is purging inactive accounts

According to Elon Musk, Twitter is now in the process of “purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years.” This is an exciting announcement for those hoping to get the coveted usernames from earlier accounts, but it could be terrible news for creators who accumulated their followers (who are now inactive) in the early days of Twitter.

Aside from bot accounts, Twitter’s population is being inflated by users who are no longer logging into their accounts for months to years. Musk has always been vocal about removing such accounts from the platform after some active users voiced the concern. For instance, in December 2022, the Tesla CEO tweeted that the platform “will soon start” clearing billions of accounts for the sake of namespace. Then, earlier this year, the company made a buzz after sharing its intention to sell usernames via online auctions, a plan that involves freeing up inactive accounts. Now, the company owner claims the platform is currently in the process of doing this.

However, aside from the announcement shared by Musk, there are no clear details about the process and its specifics. And given the current Twitter leadership’s performance in delivering its promises, it is also unclear if it really is happening now. Nonetheless, as noted by Musk, this will be noticed through follower count drops. In that case, it translates to an unfavorable effect on certain accounts, though it might bring out the real number of the Twitter population.

On the other hand, without specific details about the process, other current users expressed concerns about certain situations that will affect the significant user output considered part of public information. To address this, Musk promised that the “accounts will be archived.” Yet, what the company plans for the accounts of deceased individuals remains unanswered. But if the process is ongoing now, we can only hope Twitter is not making another mistake.