Washington: Emily Reed lost her younger sister Jessica 10 years ago. Over the past decade, he has taken to Jessica’s Twitter page to help “keep her memory alive”.
Twitter became one of the places Emily processed her grief and reconnected with a sister she describes as almost like a twin. But Jessica’s account is now gone.
Last week, owner Elon Musk Announced that Twitter would purge accounts that have had no activity for several years. The decision has been met with an outcry from those who have lost, or who fear losing, the thoughts and words of deceased loved ones linked to now-defunct accounts.
Reed immediately returned to Jessica’s page as he did a day or two before learning about the purging. Jessica’s page had an “Account Suspended” message in place, which suggested it might be a violation of Twitter’s rules.
Reid’s tweet has received thousands of responses recalling his shock at the loss of the account. Others shared similar experiences of pain when they learned that a deceased loved one’s account had gone missing.
“Having these digital footprints … is very important to me,” Reed, 43, told The Associated Press.
The advent of social media has resulted in new ways in which people mourn, returning to places where they connected with friends and family in the past. Apart from the memories and physical traces left behind, fragments of life are now being captured in the digital space.
This is something social media platforms have been struggling with in recent years.
A similar backlash led to Twitter shutting down an effort to purge inactive accounts in 2019, years before Musk’s arrival.
Other social media sites have found ways to allow people to mourn the people they have lost.
Facebook and Instagram allow users to request the deactivation of an account, or the memorialization of an account. Memorized accounts show the word “Remembering” next to the person’s name.
“In this modern age, we have these electronic reminders of people – (including) little snippets of what they thought on a particular day or photos they shared,” said Shira GabrielProfessor of Psychology at the University at Buffalo. Gabriel said going through social media for a departed loved one can be a healthy way to process grief and gather as a community in remembrance.
The prospect of that resource disappearing could “again bring on a sense of woe,” Gabriel said. “There’s a real psychological cost to getting rid of this digital thumbprint that was left behind and this ability for community members to gather in one place.”
It is unknown whether Musk will back down from the purging decision. Tesla’s billionaire CEO has instituted policies that have angered users and advertisers alike and has shown little interest in amending those policies in response.
Musk last week named a new CEO, Linda Yacarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising executive, who appears to have her hands full with a platform now in a state of chaos.
The removal of inactive accounts can be seen as fulfilling a promise Musk made when he bought the company, specifically the removal of junk accounts and bots, said Samuel WoolleyAssistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism and Media.
There are good reasons to preserve inactive accounts, and there are good reasons to delete them, Woolley said, but he’s enthusiastic about a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Account purge advocates cite skewed metrics on social media platforms due to inactive accounts or fake accounts. Yet on top of the emotional pain for some users mourning departed loved ones, deleting inactive accounts may also mean losing tweets that have documented historical events, commentaries and breaking news on the app over the years.
“Twitter acts in many ways like a library of data,” Woolley said. “Just because someone hasn’t been active for 30 days or a few years doesn’t mean their tweets don’t still have a lot of relevance.”
Musk said that the reasoning behind deleting inactive accounts was to free up unused Twitter handles or usernames, and that those inactive accounts would be archived.
Exactly what this means is not known — including what inactive accounts will look like when archived, and whether they will be easily accessible. Other details of the plan are also unclear, such as the number of accounts to be removed and whether the policy will be implemented uniformly.
While Reed and others noticed that inactive accounts of loved ones disappeared last week, an account belonging to the late father of controversial internet personality Andrew Tate still appears to be on the site, for example.
On Twitter, Tate said he was fine with Musk’s decision, but asked that his father’s account remain active because he “still (reads his account) daily.”
“Picking and choosing accounts for inactivity,” says Woolley, which Musk says would create exactly the kind of tiered system he wants to avoid.
When contacted for comment by The Associated Press, Twitter responded with an automated email. Twitter’s Trust and Safety Lead Ella Irwin also did not respond.
As per Twitter policy, the social media platform determines account inactivity through log-in. Twitter says that users should log in at least every 30 days.
Twitter users are able to download an archive of their own data through the app, but not for accounts that do not have login credentials. For example, Reid noted that her family had not been able to access Jessica’s account for the past 10 years. Now they only have a few traces that Reed’s other sister luckily captured before the purge.
Reid talks about the importance of Jessica’s Twitter and Facebook pages during her journey with grief — from following her sister’s difficult journey with cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disorder that Reid also has, to “joy and It derives from her words to cherish tweets showing … vibrancy”.
Over time, images and memories of someone who has passed can slowly shift in your mind — “like a fading picture,” Reed said. He added that having resources online, “can help keep the person’s memory alive in a way that your own personal memory might not.”
Twitter became one of the places Emily processed her grief and reconnected with a sister she describes as almost like a twin. But Jessica’s account is now gone.
Last week, owner Elon Musk Announced that Twitter would purge accounts that have had no activity for several years. The decision has been met with an outcry from those who have lost, or who fear losing, the thoughts and words of deceased loved ones linked to now-defunct accounts.
Reed immediately returned to Jessica’s page as he did a day or two before learning about the purging. Jessica’s page had an “Account Suspended” message in place, which suggested it might be a violation of Twitter’s rules.
Reid’s tweet has received thousands of responses recalling his shock at the loss of the account. Others shared similar experiences of pain when they learned that a deceased loved one’s account had gone missing.
“Having these digital footprints … is very important to me,” Reed, 43, told The Associated Press.
The advent of social media has resulted in new ways in which people mourn, returning to places where they connected with friends and family in the past. Apart from the memories and physical traces left behind, fragments of life are now being captured in the digital space.
This is something social media platforms have been struggling with in recent years.
A similar backlash led to Twitter shutting down an effort to purge inactive accounts in 2019, years before Musk’s arrival.
Other social media sites have found ways to allow people to mourn the people they have lost.
Facebook and Instagram allow users to request the deactivation of an account, or the memorialization of an account. Memorized accounts show the word “Remembering” next to the person’s name.
“In this modern age, we have these electronic reminders of people – (including) little snippets of what they thought on a particular day or photos they shared,” said Shira GabrielProfessor of Psychology at the University at Buffalo. Gabriel said going through social media for a departed loved one can be a healthy way to process grief and gather as a community in remembrance.
The prospect of that resource disappearing could “again bring on a sense of woe,” Gabriel said. “There’s a real psychological cost to getting rid of this digital thumbprint that was left behind and this ability for community members to gather in one place.”
It is unknown whether Musk will back down from the purging decision. Tesla’s billionaire CEO has instituted policies that have angered users and advertisers alike and has shown little interest in amending those policies in response.
Musk last week named a new CEO, Linda Yacarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising executive, who appears to have her hands full with a platform now in a state of chaos.
The removal of inactive accounts can be seen as fulfilling a promise Musk made when he bought the company, specifically the removal of junk accounts and bots, said Samuel WoolleyAssistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism and Media.
There are good reasons to preserve inactive accounts, and there are good reasons to delete them, Woolley said, but he’s enthusiastic about a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Account purge advocates cite skewed metrics on social media platforms due to inactive accounts or fake accounts. Yet on top of the emotional pain for some users mourning departed loved ones, deleting inactive accounts may also mean losing tweets that have documented historical events, commentaries and breaking news on the app over the years.
“Twitter acts in many ways like a library of data,” Woolley said. “Just because someone hasn’t been active for 30 days or a few years doesn’t mean their tweets don’t still have a lot of relevance.”
Musk said that the reasoning behind deleting inactive accounts was to free up unused Twitter handles or usernames, and that those inactive accounts would be archived.
Exactly what this means is not known — including what inactive accounts will look like when archived, and whether they will be easily accessible. Other details of the plan are also unclear, such as the number of accounts to be removed and whether the policy will be implemented uniformly.
While Reed and others noticed that inactive accounts of loved ones disappeared last week, an account belonging to the late father of controversial internet personality Andrew Tate still appears to be on the site, for example.
On Twitter, Tate said he was fine with Musk’s decision, but asked that his father’s account remain active because he “still (reads his account) daily.”
“Picking and choosing accounts for inactivity,” says Woolley, which Musk says would create exactly the kind of tiered system he wants to avoid.
When contacted for comment by The Associated Press, Twitter responded with an automated email. Twitter’s Trust and Safety Lead Ella Irwin also did not respond.
As per Twitter policy, the social media platform determines account inactivity through log-in. Twitter says that users should log in at least every 30 days.
Twitter users are able to download an archive of their own data through the app, but not for accounts that do not have login credentials. For example, Reid noted that her family had not been able to access Jessica’s account for the past 10 years. Now they only have a few traces that Reed’s other sister luckily captured before the purge.
Reid talks about the importance of Jessica’s Twitter and Facebook pages during her journey with grief — from following her sister’s difficult journey with cystic fibrosis, a progressive genetic disorder that Reid also has, to “joy and It derives from her words to cherish tweets showing … vibrancy”.
Over time, images and memories of someone who has passed can slowly shift in your mind — “like a fading picture,” Reed said. He added that having resources online, “can help keep the person’s memory alive in a way that your own personal memory might not.”