Bitcoin Pioneers’ Account Won’t Disappear, Confirms Twitter

Rick Delafont

1 year ago

2 mins read

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Twitter has just announced that it will proceed with less haste than originally planned with regards removing inactive accounts. Public backlash against the proposed account cull, stemming in part from the Bitcoin community, has forced the company to reconsider the policy.

People largely objected to the sudden removal of important accounts of those now deceased. One of the most frequently referenced in need of preserving is that of the late Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney.

Historic Bitcoin Tweets Won’t Go in the Trash

Earlier this week, Twitter announced that it would begin indiscriminately deleting inactive accounts from its social network. The scale of the proposed account cull makes it the biggest in the company’s history. As per a BBC report, the company said it would remove all accounts that had been inactive for six months on December 11.

Twitter justified the account purge by arguing that users that don’t (or can’t) sign in cannot agree to updates in terms and conditions or privacy policies.

However, the proposal has been met with criticism from those that say certain accounts of now deceased users should remain. Twitter currently does not have a system to memorialise such accounts, meaning potentially important posts would be lost forever.

Particular criticism came from the Bitcoin community. One of the accounts that appeared to fall under the criteria for the chop was that of early Bitcoiner, Hal Finney. Finney was one of the first to even provide feedback to the initial posting of the Whitepaper in 2008. He also received the first Bitcoin transaction. The hugely influential and respected computer scientist passed away in 2014 and is, of course, unable to sign in to Twitter.

Just hours after Satoshi Nakamoto released the software into the wild, Finney tweeted the now legendary:

Running bitcoin

— halfin (@halfin) January 11, 2009

Naturally, the sudden removal of such a pivotal part of Bitcoin history has been pretty much unanimously criticised in the Bitcoin community. So much so, in fact, that Twitter has just announced that it will take a more measured approach to its account deletion process.

We’ve heard your feedback about our effort to delete inactive accounts and want to respond and clarify. Here’s what’s happening:

— Support (@Support) November 27, 2019

In a subsequent tweet, the company wrote:

“We’ve heard you on the impact that this would have on the accounts of the deceased. This was a miss on our part. We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts.”

It looks like Hal Finney and other important accounts of those deceased will not suddenly disappear from the social network after all. Given Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s repeated endorsement of not just crypto or blockchain, but Bitcoin, it comes as little surprise to see the brakes applied quickly on an idea that might sacrifice such an important part of the cryptocurrency’s history for a privacy policy.

Featured Image from Shutterstock.

Rick Delafont

Based in Europe, Rick has written about the cryptocurrency industry since 2016. He was first drawn to Bitcoin as a means of payment but quickly became fascinated by its wider potential implications. His interests lie in the political, economic, and social impact of the unfolding digital asset revolution.