Editors note:Drew is a geek who first worked at AOL when he was 16 years old and went on to become a senior writer at TechCrunch. He is now the VP of Communications for venture equity fund Scaleworks.

There are a few ways that people use Twitter, but for the most part the ones who have pushed the social platform into the national lexicon are regular users who like to communicate with each other using the thing. Theyre the ones who use it a lot. Theyre the ones who make Twitter go.

Now, mind you, Im an extreme case. I share a lot. Ive shared my cancer diagnoses, my stem cell treatment, new jobs, my wedding. And the loss of my father Barry.

Today, Twitter announced that it will reclaim dormant accounts. That is, if you havent logged into yours for a long time, it is considered inactive and will be included in the reclamation process.

At first I thought that was pretty cool. There are a ton of accounts that get squatted on, forcing new users to use crappy AOL-like names, such as Joe583822. No fun at all. And these accounts arent even in use! As in not active.

No big deal.

But then I saw this:

My heart sank. And I cried. You see, I didnt think about this.Itisa big deal.

My fathers Twitter accountisnt active.He passed away over four years ago. My Dad was a casual tweeter at best. He mostly used it because I, well, overused it. And it was charming. Once in a while hed chime in with a zinger of a tweet and Id share it humbly with the folks who kindly follow me.

He got a kick out of that, and so did I. I still do. I still read his tweets, and from time to time I still share them with you. Its my way, odd or not, of remembering him. Keeping his spirit alive. His tweets are timestamped moments that he shared with the world.

And Twitter is sweeping them up like crumpled-up paper and junk in a dustbin.

Surely, my father isnt the only person who has passed away and left a Twitter account unkept or, as the company puts it, inactive. I can think of a few others. And I get even more upset at the thought of their thoughts disappearing. I might not remember everyone weve lost, but not being able to recall something theyve said or shared in the past is depressing.

When people ask me why I use Twitter so much, its mostly because I see the platform as a living organism. Its not perfect. In fact, its awful sometimes. Lately, a lot of times.

During events and during holidays its almost as if that tiny little app on my phone has a pulse. And a heart. Because of course it does: Its full of human beings with feelings and real thoughts. Thats what makes Twitter Twitter.

And just because someones pulse no longer beats doesnt mean their thoughts no longer matter.

I sincerely hope that Twitter didnt think about this first and reverse course. Perhaps theyll offer a way to memorialize an account. I dont have my dads login. I cant wake up his account to keep it safe. I am truly sad at the thought of losing some of his quirky nerdy tweets.

Especially this one:

My dad thoughtI was the only person on the damn site and I never corrected him or schooled him on Twitter. He used it the way he wanted to, and that reminds me of the person he was. If you take that away from me, then what is Twitter anyway?

Facebook allows you to memorialize someones page and thats pretty great. Unfortunately, my fathers page was deactivated and deleted without my having been consulted. By the time I realized it was gone, Facebook told me there was nothing it could do. It was really traumatizing for me and my other family members. So many interactions there, thoughts, smiles. A timeline. No, a time capsule.

Just gone. Like my dad.

Big tech companies are good at a lot of things, but what they seem to lack is collective empathy and heart. When humans use the things you build and you stop treating them like humans, but rather like bits and bytes and revenue dollars, youve given your soul away. And maybe its just me getting older, but Ive had about enough of it.

To quote the late great Barry Olanoff:

Think about it, Twitter. Do better. Because every time you make me question your humanity, Im one step closer to not being that whale of a user that helped get you here in the first place.

Read the original:
You can take my Dads tweets over my dead body - TechCrunch