Just a short post here, on the subject of supposedly deleted Twitter accounts. Or, more specifically, my supposedly deleted Twitter account.
For a while now, Twitter has placed a cooling-off period between a user’s decision to close his or her account, and actual deletion. It works like this…
1) You think to yourself: “Why am I using this demented haven of bots and banality? It’s crap!”
2) You storm into your account settings murmuring: “I need to get a life – this is just f***ing ridiculous”, and you look for the Delete Account link.
3) You discover that the Delete Account link has in fact been replaced with a Deactivate Account link… “Same thing”, you say to yourself, and you click the link.
4) Twitter tries to soft soap you into changing your mind, then tells you that you have 30 days of deactivation, afterwhich your account will be permanently deleted.
5) “Fair enough”, you think. And you deactivate the account. Then you forget about it. Well, not forget about it exactly. You go around telling everyone what a load of complete and utter pants Twitter is, and proudly announcing that you’ve deleted your account. If you don’t log back in within the 30 day period, it’s all over.
Except it’s not. I deactivated my account on 10th October 2011, so by the same time the following month the account should have been gone… I assumed it was. But nearly four months later, on 5th February 2012, I clicked the Twitter icon in the browser with which I used to log in… And that’s exactly what it did. It logged me straight in! ‘Welcome back!’, said the timeline. Welcome back to what, exactly? I haven’t got a Twitter account. Or at least I shouldn’t have. But it seemed that what I should have and what I did have were two completely different things. And just in case one welcome wasn’t enough, an email instantly appeared in my inbox, formally welcoming me back home to the loving, open arms of Twitter. You know those horrendously warped little towns in movies, which people try to leave, but can’t?…
In the time it took me to read the email, then go back to Twitter to deactivate again, my followers had started to come back. Evidently, Twitter just stores everything, I assume indefinitely, so that when you reactivate, whether by intention or by accident, you have a full Twitter account exactly as it was when you left it. Goodness knows what your followers are supposed to think when their follow count suddenly goes up by one without them actually following anyone…
Part of me thinks it’s quite funny and wants to experiment with leaving the account deactivated for ten years to see if it’s still there in 2022. Like the social networking equivalent of cryonic suspension. But another part of me is annoyed with what’s really a pretty insidious way for a site to conduct itself. It’s actually a serious privacy breach to continue holding information when you’ve clearly stated you’re going to delete it.
I could of course contact Twitter Support and implore them to delete the account immediately. That would shut it down, I’m sure. But thinking about it realistically, does Twitter ever really delete account information once you’ve provided it? It might make the account unavailable for public access, but I very, very much doubt Twitter ever deletes your email address, etc. Same goes for most sites, I’d guess. It’s the Internet. If you don’t want someone to retain your information, don’t give it to them in the first place.
So, that’s how you (don't) delete your Twitter account. I can't guarantee that yours will still be there in four months if you try the same thing, of course, but I suspect Twitter does this with everyone. Those who bin their password and never log back in are none the wiser, and those who intentionally log back in will regard the fact that their account still exists as a 'happy accident'. The only potential complaints will be from those like me, who clicked an old, disused link intending to go onto Twitter, but not to actually log into an account. To those who do complain, I expect Twitter just apologises, 'closes' the account, and life continues as if nothing's happened. But if this is deliberate, it's not good conduct, and it only goes to reaffirm some of the doubts many people have about Twitter and its cavalier policies.
DISCLAIMER
If you want to retain a deactivated Twitter account you should not risk leaving it deactivated a moment longer than the official deactivation period as specified by Twitter, at the time of deactivation. Ideally, of course, if you want to keep the account, don't deactivate it! The author of this article accepts no responsibility for any consequences you may encounter after deactivating a Twitter account. For information on how to find out whether or not your deactivated account has been deleted, please see Has Twitter Deleted My Account?
UPDATE - 13th August 2012: My account has now definitely gone. I'm not sure how long over the thirty days it remained this time, if it remained over the thirty days at all. But I can now confirm that Twitter does delete at least some accounts - it's clearly just not a very predictable system.
