In a quick backflip, Twitter Inc. today paused a plan to delete inactive accounts after concerns were raised about accounts belonging to deceased users.

Twitter made the initial announcement yesterday that it would be deleting inactive accounts, those that have not been used in six months or longer, starting Dec. 11 to free up usernames for other users.

“As part of our commitment to serve the public conversation, we’re working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter,” the company said in a statement at the time. “Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log-in and use Twitter when they register an account, as stated in our inactive accounts policy.”

Inactive accounts would not have been immediately deleted under the policy. Instead, Twitter would reach out to account holders with inactive accounts to inform them that their account would be deleted if they don’t log in to it.

The problem with the plan, of course, is that dead users can’t do that. Drew Olanoff at TechCrunch suggested that Twitter should instead offer a way to memorialize accounts of deceased people before purging all inactive accounts.

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

Clarifying all the confusion we caused 👇🏽 https://t.co/NirJTl7QEM

— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) November 27, 2019

Twitter provided some additional information on the initial proposal as well, noting that it only affects accounts in the European Union initially because of the EU General Data Privacy Regulation.

There is precedent in the broader social media market for accounts being memorialized. Facebook Inc. first announced support for “legacy contacts” in 2015, allowing designated contacts to manage a Facebook account in the event of the user passing. It then followed up in 2017 with more details on how a Facebook account belonging to a deceased user can be memorialized.

Given Twitter’s backflip, it’s presumed that any notices that have been sent out in the last 24 hours warning of account deletion are no longer valid, at least for now. That said, it’s likely that Twitter will recommence purging inactive accounts once it puts in place memorial provisions.

The way the announcement was handled, however, raises questions once again about the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, who splits his time between Twitter and Square Inc. While this was all happening, Dorsey was at a blockchain meetup in Ethiopia while also playing tourist. Dorsey has been criticized in the past by investors, with analysts‘ and others previously calling on him to choose between the companies.

Image: Esther Vargas/Flickr