Musk decides to bury dead Twitter accounts, warns users follower counts could sink
- Reference: 1683653885
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/05/09/twitter_inactive_account_purge/
- Source link:
Musk [1]tweeted on Monday that Twitter was going to start "purging accounts that have no activity at all for several years," and warned users they're likely to see a decrease in follower count as a result of the move.
When pressed on the issue, Musk said old accounts would be archived, "but it's important to free up abandoned handles." No other details – like when the purge would begin, what the inactivity cutoff is or whether holders of "purged" accounts could get them back – were mentioned.
[2]
Musk said accounts would be archived in response to id Software founder John Carmack, who [3]expressed concern that purging accounts, and by extension all the historic tweets they made, would be a mistake.
[4]
[5]
However "archiving" of old Twitter accounts wasn't made clear either. Under Twitter's current [6]inactive account policy , accounts are considered inactive after 30 days of not logging in; prolonged inactivity, per the policy, can lead to account deletion.
Twitter's inactivity policy states that inactive usernames can't be released, so Musk is likely planning a change there. What happens to an account once it's archived, which under the new order would somehow free the username too, is a mystery.
[7]
Several Twitter users responded to Musk to express opposition to the move because they regularly visited the account of deceased loved ones, and archiving under the new policy doesn't explain what will happen to those profiles.
We contacted Twitter to ask if archived profiles would be discoverable or visitable on the platform after the purge and other questions but got the usual poop emoji.
Another cost cutter?
While Twitter CEO and billionaire owner Musk may claim his latest investment is close to [8]breaking even , it has come at quite the cost.
[9]Twitter admits 'security incident' made private Circles not so much
[10]Twitter's API paywall crumbles (but only for those saving lives, predicting weather, etc.)
[11]Microsoft nopes out after Twitter starts charging $$$ for API access
[12]Musk tells Twitter advertisers: You're welcome back, but don't make demands
Musk took out [13]tens of billions of dollars in loans to buy the site, and is paying [14]hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments for the privilege. To counteract the fact the [15]not exactly profitable site has dived into the red, there have been several rounds of layoffs, leading to Twitter's pre-Musk headcount of [16]around 7,500 shrinking to, at latest estimates, around 1,000 people.
Twitter's legal troubles keep piling up as well, most recently when ex-CEO Parag Agrawal and two other former Twitter leaders filed a lawsuit claiming the company owed them [17]more than $1 million in unpaid legal bills.
Other Twitter lawsuits include the company being sued by multiple landlords (including the British Crown) over unpaid rent in its headquarters, and unpaid bills from consultants and other vendors.
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Twitter has been restructuring its back end as well, leading to [19]outages from server switchovers and datacenter migrations to shrink the company's technical footprint. Eliminating thousands of inactive accounts would surely save a bit more juice – anything to help that bottom line. ®
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[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655720120440823809
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZFrChQgTphfNXIa8oSBRIQAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1655632877407617024
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZFrChQgTphfNXIa8oSBRIQAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZFrChQgTphfNXIa8oSBRIQAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/inactive-twitter-accounts
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZFrChQgTphfNXIa8oSBRIQAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-twitter-is-roughly-breaking-even-2023-04-12/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/08/twitter_circle_security_incident/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/twitter_api_public_service/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/20/twitter_microsoft_api/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/19/musk_says_twitter_advertisers_can/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/04/twitter_shares_frozen_on_musk/
[14] https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-makes-first-interest-payment-musk-buyout-debt-sources-2023-01-31/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/08/twitter_q4fy2017_numbers/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/27/twitter_latest_layoffs/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/11/former_execs_sue_twitter/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZFrChQgTphfNXIa8oSBRIQAAAMA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/09/twitter_glitches_raises_tweet_limit/
[20] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Something tells me he is planning on selling all that data as soon as he has control over it. Maybe even use it to train his own "big lie AI". Funny how he reduced twit to another truther bro site that only the worst of humanity wishes to still part take in after shouting false narratives, and misinformation, about who was "manipulating free speech" with it. Just like a russian. Accuse others of which you are partaking.
Phew that's a relief
All those tweets praising President XYZ,
All those... moments... will be lost in time,
Like tears... in... rain.
Time... to die...
Re: Phew that's a relief
Time for Twitter to die... ftfy
Eliminating thousands of inactive accounts would surely save a bit more juice
I'm curious - how exactly do you think this will save any resource? Sounds to me more like a technical project that will tie up several skilled staff for, at a minimum, several weeks, plus ongoing work handling the fallout. To say nothing of the inevitable new lawsuits. And once done, how is any operating cost going to go down?
The only advantage is that presumably lots of cool handles, which were originally snapped up in the early days, can be resold to new suckers. I might even put in a bid for @realDonaldTrump...
Just came to post the exact same thing. Surely, at most it'll be a small amount of disc space.
Seems to me that what Big Twit wants is to lay claim to unused handles in order to recycle them (I can only imagine he has his eyes on one he likes?) and this dumb charade is the constructed excuse for making it happen. But, then, we are talking about the person with the incredibly childish mentality that a poop emoji is a suitable response to being asked actual questions.
Recycling or renting out for only $11/month?
"Slightly used, some dents on the forward edges"
If you are interested in grabbing a particular handle of an archived account, will you be able to first inspect the old archived tweets of that account?
What if you always wanted the handle "threelayercake"? Without being able to check first, you might find the history associated with it more like "threelayerhate".
Would you buy a used car without checking who's in the trunk?
Re: "Slightly used, some dents on the forward edges"
Yeah whos going to risk taking on an old handle if you don't know what was posted by that account before, as there might be still references out there of it being used to tweet offensive posts, pron etc in the past.
My friend once got a pay and go mobile phone SIM which had clearly been used by an escort agency before the number was abandoned and then reused by the telco. There must have been old ads still online meaning they would get several calls/text a week from punters looking for good time.
Speaking out of near total ignorance… perhaps there’s some indexing overhead that’s reduced if the number of collections in the database is reduced. Even that’s a bit of a stretch though. So yeah, genuinely interested in what resources that cost money would be liberated by removing unused Twitter accounts and their tweets and stats.
Sounds like a retroactive method of justifying his seizing Twitter handles, like @e which he stole from someone after taking over Twitter, and I'm sure now that X.org is planning to only use Mastadon he'll happily take that one over too. In typical Twitler fashion, it seems like he didn't really think this through. He just spontaneously thought of the idea after someone suggested it to him, and doing his best Patrick Stewart impression, told the remaining sad sacks at Twitter to "make it so!"
At the very least, he could offer up a window where people could download a copy of a loved ones tweets without having to pay some stupid API access fee. I just personally can't wait for the day when Twitler joins the ranks of the "dearly" departed. Hopefully all the hair plugs, plastic surgery, and drugs will catch up to him sooner rather than later and some poor sod finds him in a Twitter office, having choked to death on his own vomit in his sleep. A fitting death given he paid $45bn to be queen bitch on his own little mean girls platform.