It may sound exaggerated, but yes, it was Elon Musk himself who advanced deleting 1.5 billion inactive accounts to free up usernamesone of many measures to refresh Twitter and in this case give an opportunity to those who use the platform and have to adapt to what is left.

Maybe it sounds like an exaggeration for the number, it should be clarified that Twitter is estimated to have some 300 million active users worldwide, which is certainly a small number compared to giants like Facebook or TikTok and does not reflect the relevance and the influence of the little bird’s social network.

Be that as it may, one thing is what you have and another what hadhundreds of millions of users who have come and gone over the years, leaving behind usernames that no one else can use, even if no one else uses them, many of them related to organizations or personalities.

Well, it will end, although, as Elon Musk points out, they will do it carefully, warning in advance the users who registered these accounts that if they do not reactivate them – that is, if they do not start using Twitter – they will lose. Likewise, only “accounts without tweets created years ago«. At least to begin with.

Twitter will soon begin freeing up the namespace of 1.5 billion accounts

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022

But the measure that Elon Musk is now announcing has precedents in previous Twitter management. In late 2019, it was warned that the deletion of inactive accounts would begin, albeit shortly after Twitter users whose activities were of possible future academic interest were stopped out of respect for the deceased. Until today.

So we will have to see how the new administration, which is scrutinized for everything it does, will contribute to the implementation of this initiative. By the way, for a social network like Twitter, focused on external communication, in which the fastest, and not the most skilled, choose their username, this is quite a logical policy.

Of course not yet no specific date was given for the application of this measure, as, on the other hand, is the case with almost everything brought up by its new owner. But there is a suggestion.