Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, announced on Friday that the platform will delete and free up the names of 1.5 billion inactive accounts that have been unused for years. Musk claimed that these deletions will help free up space for existing users. Considering that a significant number of accounts will be deleted, many users might witness a drop in followers.
In a tweet, Musk said, "Twitter will soon start freeing the name space of 1.5 billion accounts. These are obvious account deletions with no tweets and no login for years." This is not the second time Musk is conducting a purge. Last time, it was done to remove scam and spam accounts.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk undertook a purge of Twitter accounts dealing in spam and scam. Musk said in a tweet, "Twitter is purging a lot of spam/scam accounts right now, so you may see your follower count drop."
Changes to remove the ability to 'shadow ban' on Twitter
Musk also revealed that Twitter is working on a process to inform users if their tweets have been suppressed under a practice known as "shadow banning" and will allow them to appeal the ban. He said, "We're also working on a software update that will show your true account status. So you know clearly if you've been shadowbanned, the reason why, and how to appeal."
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Musk released more documents under Twitter Files Part two. New evidence showed that Twitter had been suppressing certain political speech on the platform. The "Twitter Files 2" investigation uncovered that a 'secret group' at the company made controversial decisions, including "shadow banning" high-profile users without informing the user. Bari Weiss, Founder and Editor of The Free Press, said in the new Twitter Files, "This secret group included the Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust (Vijaya Gadde), the Global Head of Trust & Safety (Yoel Roth), subsequent CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal, and others."