Updated: Twitter Will Not Remove Accounts Belonging to the Deceased

Yesterday we reported that Twitter has announced that it plans to remove accounts of twitter users who have been inactive for more than six months. In a new development, Twitter has announced that it will not delete accounts belonging to the deceased.

The social media platform announced in a tweet that it “will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts.”

We’ve heard you on the impact that this would have on the accounts of the deceased. This was a miss on our part. We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 27, 2019

Twitter also announced that planned accounts deactivation will only affect users in the EU only, in the interim:

This impacts accounts in the EU only, for now. We’ve always had an inactive account policy but we haven’t enforced it consistently. We’re starting with the EU in part due to local privacy regulations (eg, GDPR).

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 27, 2019

See the original story below:

Twitter has announced that it plans to remove accounts of twitter users who have been inactive for more than six months. This announcement is being sent to target users through the mail address with which they registered the accounts.

Account to the announcement, Twitter will revoke usernames belonging to accounts that have been inactive for six months or more by December 11, after which the usernames will be made available to the public for re-acquiring.

To prevent a dormant account from being revoked, the twitter account holder has to sign in on Twitter before December 11 in order to take the account off the dormant list.

“As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter. Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log-in and use Twitter when they register an account, as stated in our inactive accounts policy,”

What About Twitter Accounts of the Deceased?

Concerns have been raised about Twitter accounts belonging to people who have passed on. In response to those concerns, a Twitter spokesperson told The Verge that the team was working on ways to handle accounts of deceased account holders.

“We do not currently have a way to memorialize someone’s Twitter account once they have passed on, but the team is thinking about ways to do this,” 

Twitter spokesperson

While the removal process is set to commence on the 11th of December, it will take many months before every defaulting account has been taken off. This means that certain usernames may not be available immediately after the 11th.

Twitter accounts that have been set up with bots will not be affected as long as they are active. It is also interesting to note that Twitter no longer registers usernames that have lesser than 5 characters.

Here is a copy of the mail being sent by Twitter with the heading “Don’t lose access to @(username).”

Hello,

To continue using Twitter, you’ll need to agree to the current Terms, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Use. This not only lets you make the best decisions about the information that you share with us, it also allows you to keep using your Twitter account. But first, you need to log in and follow the on-screen prompts before Dec. 11, 2019, otherwise your account will be removed from Twitter.

According to Twitter, its move to clean up accounts will help to drive more engaging and credible conversation on the social media platform.