You can take my Dad’s tweets over my dead body
0Reported today on TechCrunch
For the full article visit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/26/you-can-take-my-dads-tweets-over-my-dead-body/
You can take my Dad's tweets over my dead body
Editor's note: Drew is a geek who first worked at AOL when he was 16 years old and went on to become a senior writer at TechCrunch. He is now the VP of Communications for venture equity fund Scaleworks.
There are a few ways that people use Twitter, but for the most part the ones who have pushed the social platform into the national lexicon are regular users who like to communicate with each other using the thing. They're the ones who use it a lot. They're the ones who make Twitter go.
Now, mind you, I'm an extreme case. I share a lot. I've shared my cancer diagnoses, my stem cell treatment, new jobs, my wedding. And the loss of my father Barry.
rest sir.
- drew olanoff (@yoda) September 2, 2015
Today, Twitter announced that it will reclaim dormant accounts. That is, if you haven't logged into yours for a long time, it is considered inactive and will be included in the reclamation process.
At first I thought that was pretty cool. There are a ton of accounts that get squatted on, forcing new users to use crappy AOL-like names, such as Joe583822. No fun at all. And these accounts aren't even in use! As in not active.
No big deal.
But then I saw this:
Here's some more info on the Twitter user cull. As it stands, every person who has had Twitter and died more than six months ago will be deleted from the site – UNLESS someone already has their log-in details. https://t.co/jupCD04m5D
- Dave Lee (@DaveLeeBBC) November 26, 2019
My heart sank. And I cried. You see, I didn't think about this. It is a big deal.
My father's Twitter account isn't active. He passed away over four years ago. My Dad was a casual tweeter at best. He mostly used it because I, well, overused it. And it was charming. Onc