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"If you have been eyeing a Twitter username that has not been available for months, you might soon have a chance to grab it for yourself."
Twitter is sending out emails to owners of inactive accounts (accounts that have not seen any sign in activity for last six months) saying that these users need to log into their accounts by December 11th to avoid deactivation, as reported by The Verge. Just a few months back, Bloomberg's Technology Editor Vlad Savov pointed out an issue on Twitter in a hilarious manner. In his tweet, Vlad said, "The person holding the @vlad handle MOCKS ME with his 11 months of inactivity." Although the tweet was meant to be a joke, it also highlighted how Twitter seemingly fails to deal with accounts that are not active anymore, and it now looks like the social media platform is finally taking some action.
If inactive Twitter users do not log into their account by December 11th, their usernames will be up for grabs. In an emailed statement to The Verge, a spokesperson from Twitter said, "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, as stated in our inactive accounts policy." The spokesperson added, "We have begun proactive outreach to many accounts who have not logged into Twitter in over six months to inform them that their accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity."
As you might imagine, this is not as straight-forward a task as it seems on the surface. Twitter doesn't yet have a concrete way of finding out if the user has simply stopped using the account or the owner of the account has passed away. Although the company's spokesperson has said that the team is figuring out a way to memorialise those who have passed on, there is a great chance that many such accounts might be deactivated in this process of removing inactive accounts.
It should also be kept in mind that even though the company says that it wants credible information to be presented on its platform, any secondary accounts that have remained active will continue to exist, so this is as far away from a good solution as you might imagine for this particular problem. Regardless, if like Vlad, you have also been waiting for an inactive username to free up, Christmas is set to come early for you.