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Bots and trolls often use accounts they’ve purchased or hacked. For this reason, social media platforms should delete dormant accounts, which are easy pickings for the bot-troll factories.
Twitter’s Dormant Accounts
Twitter is rife with examples. With millions of old, dormant accounts on Twitter, bad actors have a wonderland of opportunity.
Just a few examples. Look around—they are easy to find. Accounts created all the way back to 2009. Not one tweet among them.
Why should any account older than a year that has had no activity be allowed to remain on the platform? What good do these accounts serve other than to bolster overall numbers for the platforms?
If the accounts were legitimately created, there’s a strong possibility the user no longer remembers the password. And, as the fake accounts prove repeatedly, it’s easy enough for anyone to create a new account.
Call to Action
This is a call to action for all social media platforms. The global cesspool of fake accounts creating disinformation, sowing discord, amplifying propaganda, and swaying elections needs to stop. And platforms have the power to stop it. Deleting dormant accounts will go a long way to help protect the platforms as well as their real users.
Written by Virginia Murr
Read more about Fake Social Media Accounts:
Fake Social Media Accounts, Real World Impact
States are Cracking Down on Companies that Sell Fake Social Media Accounts
Why Political Bots are Effective but Commercial Bots are Not
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