Do you agree with Twitter removing old accounts?
Aaron O'Leary
13 replies
Twitter announced recently that starting December 11th it will begin to remove old, inactive accounts in turn freeing up many usernames. While it may seem great at the start there are concerns about twitter accounts from loved ones who may have passed on, with a Twitter account potentially providing a lot of happy memories.
Do you agree or disagree with Twitter here?
Replies
John Martinez@john_martinez
I agree with Ighodalo Ellis. As long as there's an option to save or archive an account for a deceased loved one (like FB does), then I think it's a great idea. It'll also help companies get a more accurate picture of their followers (versus a bunch of junk accounts).
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Finally! I don't know why they've let people hog usernames for so long when they are doing anything with them. Though I do think people should be given a grace period where they can object to having the username is taken, such as for a business that is about to launch and start using their profile but was reserving their username.
I see it on a daily basis – there are successful companies that aren't able to get the username they deserve and it harms their brand in the long-term just because someone decided to create a dummy account that they never even log into.
Deleting old account is a great idea to free up usernames but mostly I think there should be a window to point out accounts of those whose have passed on like facebook does. @twittersurveys should take note of this.
@twittersurveys @mrwellslife but not everyone can actively use their account, for example, I just go in and out to follow the developments, can they really distinguish this from the old accounts?
I'm really glad to hear that too. At one of my companies we've got the problem that someone got the company name before we did. They are completely inactive - they even have the old egg profile picture, but Twitter won't help. Maybe we'll be able to get it now :-)
@rhona_aylward I have this problem too. Applied once for the username while our trademark was pending...and was denied. Applied again last week now that our trademark has been approved. Fingers crossed!
yeah agreed so that all junk accounts that sometimes confuse me can be removed.
I think before twitter delete your inactive account, they should send email and if user don't response after 7 day, delete account(username and data) forever...
I was pushing for this when I worked at Twitter in 2010/2011 but the Growth team didn't like the idea of decreasing the number of accounts out there because it hurt their metrics. I'm glad to hear that someone at Twitter finally convinced the people in charge to cull inactive accounts.
Yeah believe it concurred so all garbage accounts that occasionally befuddle me can be expelled.