Big Tech: Elon Musk moves to delete 1.5bn inactive Twitter accounts

*Elon Musk, American billionaire businessman and Chief Executive of Twitter, a leading microblogging site and social media platform, says the Big Tech will ‘soon’ start freeing the usernames of 1.5 billion accounts, and delete such  inactive accounts in the process

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

The Management of Twitter, a leading microblogging site and social media platform, has expressed interest in purging inactive accounts on the channel.

ConsumerConnect reports Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter, November 2022, had hinted at the possibility that Twitter would deactivate accounts that have been inactive on the social media platform for a long time.

Musk said in the following month that Twitter would “soon” start freeing the usernames of 1.5 billion accounts, and disclosed that such inactive accounts would be deleted in the process.

The American billionaire businessman, earlier in the week, had tweeted: “We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop.

“It is important to free up abandoned handles.”

Responding to a user, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO noted that several usernames would become available as a result of the move.

Several users replied to Musk’s tweet, asking if there would be a way to memorialise accounts of deceased users.

The multibillionaire hinted that deleted accounts “will be archived.”

It was learnt that the latest decision came as Twitter continues to make new changes to the platform to boost revenue, even as some of the measures have alienated users and advertisers in recent times, The Independent UK report noted.

It is recalled the company, April this year, did away with free blue check marks, and monetised its user verification process, charging people $8 each month for the “blue tick” badges.

Musk, however, reinstated the blue tick on some celebrity, media and other high profile accounts even as some of the recipients protested receiving free verification, according to report.

Twitter has also tried several different approaches to boost revenue, including relaxing some of its policies that ban political advertisements and adding a more expensive ad-free subscription option to the platform.

The social media company also announced that it was planning to charge companies from $42,000 to as much as $210,000 per month for access to its Application Programming Interface.

Twitter has also changed its content policies, announcing it will rely more on artificial intelligence to moderate posts on the platform.

The platform is also trying to attract more content creators, report said.