Microblogging platform Twitter is gearing up to take a serious action against accounts that have been sitting idle and doing nothing on the social networking site.

This will directly affect the following of Twitter users as they may notice a drop in the number of accounts that follow them as the microblogging platform starts to purge the accounts who aren’t active on the site.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, on Monday announced that the account that has had no activity at all for several years will be removed from the platform.

The billionaire took to his official Twitter account to make the announcement.

“We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop,” Musk tweeted.

In a separate tweet, the 51-year-old revealed that these inactive accounts will be archived on Twitter, but “it is important to free up abandoned handles.”

However, the billionaire didn’t reveal when the process will kickstart and accounts will start getting deactivated on the platform.

Musk or Twitter didn’t reveal how the tech company intends to allow users the access to these archived accounts.

The accounts will be archived

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023

According to Twitter’s policy, users will need to log in to their social networking account at least once every 30 days to avoid permanent removal due to prolonged inactivity.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Musk had “threatened” to reassign National Public Radio’s Twitter account to another company, after the public broadcaster stopped posting content to its 52 official Twitter feeds in protest against the tech giant’s label that implied government involvement in its editorial content.

Twitter last month removed the legacy verified blue tick from the profile of thousands of people, including celebrities, journalists and prominent politicians.

Musk has made account verification a part of Twitter’s Blue subscription, a move he said would tackle the issue of bot accounts on the social media platform.