In a series of overnight tweets, Elon Musk stated that he would be removing 1.5 billion users from Twitter and adding a new feature in the coming weeks.
Musk announced on Twitter early Friday morning that he would delete 1.5 billion accounts to free up usernames for existing users. In addition, he stated that he would include a function that would enable Twitter users to view the number of individuals who read or reacted to their tweets.
“Tweets will show view count in a few weeks, just like videos do. Twitter is much more alive than people think,” Musk said.
In additional tweets, Musk stated that in order to free up usernames for current users, he would be deleting accounts that had not logged in “for years.”
“Twitter will soon start freeing the name space of 1.5 billion accounts,” the Twitter CEO wrote.
He added: “These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years.”
Musk is making the company move away from a tool that controls users’ speech for political or other reasons, and toward a free exchange of ideas.
They also come as Musk has unveiled a slew of internal documents that demonstrate how executives at Twitter influenced the platform, suspended users, and decreased the number of people who could see an account or post.
These documents, which Musk shared with Substack journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, were referred to as the “Twitter Files.”
The files allegedly show Twitter’s ever-persistent content moderation was decided on “at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.”