Twitter Purge: Musk is winding down accounts that have been inactive

Elon Musk has announced that users globally may experience a drop in their follower count as Twitter Purge is now being executed on accounts that have had no activity for several years.

This execution by Musk on Twitter Purge is intended to clarify the genuine size of the active user base and provide a better estimate for all functionalities dependent on the follower count. This also aims to solve the concern Musk had while acquiring Twitter, citing the over-inflated user count.

Also Read: Twitter Inc no longer exists, its a part of X Corp now

The duration of "several years" and the definition of "no activity" has not been clarified by Musk. While this move solves some problems, it raises a few concerns too. It has been touted that if Twitter would be deleting the accounts and their Tweets, it would affect the 'publicly available' files of communication by several accounts, specifically historical or important figures, and organizations.

Though this would have a positive impact on advertising, where advertisers would have a clear picture of their target audience, and demographics. As all these accounts would be defined as active by Twitter, it would be highly likely that most campaigns reach the eyeballs for consideration.

Twitter is not the first platform to carry out this execution. Instagram was one of the first platforms to execute a purge in 2019. The platform reportedly deleted fake accounts on the platform hosted by bots or third-party apps. Such accounts are used to carry out activities like mass follow, and more. These activities are considered inauthentic by the platform. And, such activities also damper real experiences and genuine interactions.