We're several decades into the rise of social media platforms, and sites like Twitter and Instagram have long been the most efficient way to keep up with loved ones and popular figures. So when Twitter's new step-dad Elon Musk announced that the site would be purging all inactive accounts, followers flooded the comments section with one request -- leave the accounts of the deceased active.
Many commenters expressed fear that the accounts of their late partners, friends, parents, and siblings would be deleted from the site, illustrating just how common social media has become to grief in the modern day.
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Some users have suggested a "memorial" function for accounts to preserve the thoughts and posts of loved ones, which is the method currently used by Meta Platforms' (META) Facebook. Others pointed out that Twitter's former leadership revoked its plans to do something similar in 2019.
Musk's tweet was posted on the morning of May 8, and according to some devastated Twitter users, the policy was enacted post haste. One poster was absolutely livid when she realized her late sister's profile, along with all of the content she posted, had been scrubbed from the site.
The move, according to Musk, is intended to free up usernames for new users. But the act of a new user taking over the name of a deceased user seems complicated and potentially painful for the person's surviving loved ones.
If you're hoping that your thoughts will be left behind for your loved ones to scroll through while they remember you fondly, it may be time to switch to a different platform.
