Twitter has started sending out emails to owners of inactive accounts. The account owners will have to sign in to their accounts by December 11 to keep them active. Any account that hasn’t signed in will receive a warning email. If users fail to sign in to their accounts by December 11, their accounts and history will be deleted. The usernames of the deleted accounts will be up for grab again.
The email sent to inactive users says,
“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.”
The move is in sync with effort to encourage people to actively login and use Twitter when they register an account. The company has proactively started reaching out to account owners. The idea is to make the usernames available to existing users. However, there is no confirmation on when the usernames will be made available. The account removal process will happen over months, not just a single day.
This not only impacts people who have abandoned Twitter but will also have an impact on accounts that belong to the deceased. There is no provision to memorialise someone’s Twitter account once they pass on.
If you have set up a secondary account, there is no reason to worry. As long as the account has stayed active, it will not get removed. The account doesn’t have to tweet anything to stay active, they simply have to login to Twitter and follow the new privacy policy.
