Twitter to Remove Idle Accounts, Archive them

FILE PHOTO: A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Twitter logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Twitter logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo
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Twitter to Remove Idle Accounts, Archive them

FILE PHOTO: A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Twitter logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Twitter logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/File Photo

Social media platform Twitter Inc will remove accounts that have been inactive for several years, CEO
Elon Musk announced in a tweet on Monday, saying that the action is "important to free up abandoned handles."

Twitter's billionaire owner in a separate tweet said inactive accounts will be archived, Musk did not add any details
on when the process will begin.

It was not immediately known if or how Twitter users will be able to access archived accounts.

Musk also said users on the micro-blogging platform could see a drop in follower count, as several inactive accounts might get removed.

According to Twitter's policy, users should log in to their account at least once every 30 days to avoid permanent removal due to prolonged inactivity, Reuters reported.

Earlier this month, Musk "threatened" to reassign National Public Radio's Twitter account to another company, after the public broadcaster stopped posting content to its 52 official Twitter feeds in protest against a Twitter label that implied government involvement in its editorial content.

Twitter last month removed the legacy verified blue tick from the profile of thousands of people, including celebrities, journalists and prominent politicians.

Musk has made account verification a part of Twitter's Blue subscription, a move he said would tackle the issue of bot accounts on the social media platform.



What Is Bluesky, the Fast-Growing Social Platform Welcoming Fleeing X Users?

In this photo illustration, the Bluesky logo is displayed on a cell phone and computer monitor on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
In this photo illustration, the Bluesky logo is displayed on a cell phone and computer monitor on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
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What Is Bluesky, the Fast-Growing Social Platform Welcoming Fleeing X Users?

In this photo illustration, the Bluesky logo is displayed on a cell phone and computer monitor on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California. (Getty Images via AFP)
In this photo illustration, the Bluesky logo is displayed on a cell phone and computer monitor on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California. (Getty Images via AFP)

Disgruntled X users are again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of the former Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took it over in 2022. While it remains small compared to established online spaces such as X, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood, lighter and friendlier and less influenced by Musk.

What is Bluesky? Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

Why is Bluesky growing? Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and talk to others online. The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time Bluesky has benefited from people leaving X. The platform gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August — 85% of them from Brazil, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in one day in October, when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Across the platform, new users — among them journalists, left-leaning politicians and celebrities — have posted memes and shared that they were looking forward to using a space free from advertisements and hate speech. Some said it reminded them of the early days of Twitter more than a decade ago.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted after the election that it had “dominated the global conversation on the US election” and had set new records.

Beyond social networking Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X. Beyond the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls “a protocol for public conversation” — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.

Currently, you can’t cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone’s account. Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if they want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which helps serve their advertising-focused business models.

Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and working toward interoperability.