The fact that Twitter announced its intention of inactive user accounts meant that we were going to have to say goodbye to all those tweets that people already deceased had written, something that the user community has felt like a blow and that has not taken long to materialize. in unprecedented global protest.
Twitter has been active for more than 13 years and in order to free up the names of inactive users and make them available to the first one who wanted to register and use said account, it made this decision – according to the majority, not very correct and thoughtful – to end the accounts inactive.
And those who have died?
However , following the popular outcry, Twitter is reconsidering part of its plan that was to begin next month after reading comments about the outright refusal to delete the posts of people who have passed away.
“We have heard from you about the impact this would have on the accounts of the deceased,” Twitter said in a statement. “It was a failure on our part .”
The company stated that it plans to introduce a “new way” for its users to “memorize” the accounts on the service. It is not intended to remove inactive accounts prior to the introduction of that feature. That is, they will not delete accounts until they have a process to “memorize” deceased users on the network.
The social network claimed to have taken this type of action on inactive accounts due to regulatory concerns.
Once the new method is complete, account deactivations in the European Union will be the first, to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
“We apologize for the confusion and will keep you posted,” the company said in a series of tweets posted this week. “Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log in.”
The update comes just a day after Twitter warned users who haven’t signed in for at least six months that their accounts could soon disappear.
What if I don’t tweet?
If you are one of those who enters a lot on Twitter but you do not like to tweet, that is, you are more of a reader than an active user, you do not have to worry. This new measure will not affect those who spend time on Twitter but not necessarily tweeting. Twitter defines activity at login and acknowledges that “not all signs of account activity are publicly visible,” in accordance with the policy guidelines outlined on its website.
Twitter ended its statement saying that:
“Beyond complying with GDPR, we may extend the application of our inactivity policy in the future to comply with other regulations around the world and ensure the integrity of the service. We will communicate with everyone if we do.”
It is not very clear when exactly the account purge process will begin or how many users will be affected, but the company claims to have located “many accounts” that do not meet the base requirements, although it has not made any official estimates. What is known is that it will be a process that will last for many months, in no case will it be done in a single action.
