PSA: Twitter will deactivate your account if you haven’t logged in for the past 6 months

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A new policy is being put in place on Twitter. On December 11, your account could be permanently deactivated if you have not logged in and/or tweeted in the last six months. When the account is gone, then the username will be “back on the market” so to speak.

But this won’t be a blink-and-you-and-several-other-accounts-disappear-type of situation. In an interview with The Verge, a Twitter spokesperson said the process of eliminating inactive accounts will be over the course of a few months.

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 log-in and use Twitter when they register an account.

If you haven’t logged on in the past half-year, Twitter is going to deactivate your account

There are myriads of old accounts that folks may have made years ago, who could probably care less if their accounts are deleted. However, there are a few different situations where someone would want to keep their account. If you have an inactive account with a username tied to a trademark, then a different set of rules will apply through Twitter’s trademark policy.

On a more personal note, what about Twitter accounts that belong to the recently deceased? Twitter currently has no policy for memorializing accounts like Facebook. In the same interview with The Verge, the company has said they are “working on” a way to do so.

So, if you are a Twitter user and end up receiving an email with the subject line “Don’t lose access to @[insert your user name here]” it could be time to start paying attention and log in.

What do you think? Glad to see Twitter doing something like this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Colin Barry

I like honey roasted peanuts because they are delicious. I also like the Metal Slug games and X-Men comics because they are awesome.