Elon Musk had indicated plans to delete abandoned Twitter accounts shortly after buying the company. Now that purge is happening and some users are worried.
Thousands of older Twitter accounts may soon disappear as Elon Musk wheels out yet another controversial change to his social media platform. Musk has made a number of bold decisions since taking over the microblogging site toward the end of 2022. Some of those decisions have had unintended consequences and subsequently backfired on the billionaire. The most well-known change, which had some of the biggest teething problems, was the removal of legacy blue checkmarks and the switch to a pay-for-verification system. The initial relaunch of Twitter Blue led to chaos, with trolls posing as prominent businesses, celebrities, and politicians.
We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023
Now, Musk is seemingly set on implementing another of his proposed policies — and many are predicting that this will also have unintended consequences. Musk first suggested inactive accounts would be removed from the platform in November 2022, not long after he bought Twitter. Now it seems the purge is happening, with Musk warning users that they’re likely to see their follower count drop.
There are certainly benefits to the policy. Many desirable usernames will undoubtedly be freed up and could then be taken by active users. But the downsides might outweigh any positives quite significantly. A key downside may again relate to impersonation. As older accounts are deleted, someone could theoretically claim the handle of a well-known but no longer active user and then pretend to be them.
