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As Twitter purges inactive accounts on its platform, it may share some long-loved usernames, such as owner Elon Musk’s recent tweets. Although Twitter has been promising to recover more usernames for years, it has made little effort to do so, despite the introduction of a non-user account policy that requires Twitter users to register every 30 days. prevent the permanent opening of accounts.
According to Musk, Twitter is more conservative than these rules. However, he said the company was cleaning up records that had “been inactive for many years”, while warning users that the cleanup could result in a reduction in the number of items used. This is something that can often be seen in long Twitter accounts that owners have amassed during the days of Twitter as a social network.
We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023
In a later tweet, Musk also explained that in response to a question about the acquisition of the brand name “yes,” many brands are about to be acquired due to this move. However, he did not explain how users can obtain these usernames other than the usual method of trying to create a new account with a specific username.
In recent months, Twitter has considered selling popular domain names through online auctions to increase revenue. It’s not clear if that plan will continue to play and how, if so, it will work. In December 2022, Musk announced that Twitter would “soon” release the usernames of 1.5 billion accounts, noting that invalid accounts would be deleted as part of that process.
Musk has been interested in releasing brands for a while, he also revealed in October that it was something he wanted to do as the owner of Twitter.
Since Musk took over the social network, Twitter has faced increasing competition from Twitter alternatives, including the open source platform Mastodon, rival Bluesky and other Twitter components such as T2, nostr and Post, among others. Although no one is “the new Twitter,” each network has managed to churn out thousands of Twitter users, with Mastodon now serving 1.2 million monthly users across its servers, for example. Other companies, such as Substack, Flipboard and Artifact, have also launched their own discussion platforms that can compete directly with Twitter.
By unlocking desired user names, Musk can potentially attract users back to Twitter, which will benefit the network’s influence and ultimately, Twitter’s ability to generate revenue.
However, Musk tweets a lot, and not all of them come to pass in the time he suggested. So far, neither the official Twitter account nor the Twitter Support account has shared any updates related to the possibility of confiscation of the username or other information about this process. In Musk’s response, many people are asking if there will be a way to remember the accounts of those who have passed, instead of deleting them. This hasn’t been resolved yet, either.
-TechCrunch
