Nov. 27 (UPI) — Twitter on Wednesday announced it plans to place an effort to remove inactive accounts from the site, as it works to accommodate the deceased.
The social media company apologized for the “confusion and concerns” caused by reports it would delete accounts of users who have not signed in for an extended period of time. Twitter also clarified the scope of the effort and said it would work to find a way for users to designate accounts belonging to people who have died before carrying out the process.
“We’ve heard you on the impact this would have on the accounts of the deceased. This was a miss on our part. We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts,” Twitter Support wrote on Wednesday.
The company also clarified its effort to delete inactive accounts currently only applies to the European Union due to local privacy regulations.
“We may broaden the enforcement of our inactivity policy in the future to comply with other regulations around the world and to ensure the integrity of the service. We will communicate with all of you if we do,” Twitter said.
On Tuesday, The Verge reported that Twitter was sending emails to owners of inactive accounts informing them that if they did not sign in by Dec. 11, their account would be deleted, freeing up the username for active users.
“As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter. Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively lig-in and use Twitter when they register an account, as stated in our inactive accounts policy,” a Twitter representative said.
