Live data from Hacker News

My @JFK Twitter account “has been suspended and will not be restored”

medium.com

1–10 of 31 posts

Re: My @JFK Twitter account “has been suspended and will not be restored”

#4
I don't think you can impersonate an airport. They should revise the message to say that they're taking his username for "imairportation".

Kind of reminds me of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft

Except in the real world, if you buy the domain name it's yours, while being an early adopter of Twitter just gets your account shut down if Twitter thinks they can make more money by giving it to someone else.

Finally, it's not like he told people to message John Fitzgerald Kelley with complaints about KJFK airport. They did that on their own, and he just took it in stride. That's what passes for a terms of service violation these days.

Re: My @JFK Twitter account “has been suspended and will not be restored”

#5
Unfortunately, these kinds of things happen all too often. Corporations don't have souls. Someone likely reported the guy and some worker making pennies in the Philippines spent a few seconds on his case and moved on to the next hundred. The only way to get them to care is if you're someone important, or if you kick up a big enough storm. The way companies like Google are moving towards automating human decisions (as evident in Youtube and the Play Store) will only exacerbate the alienation users will face. This is the future we choose with these megacorporations. One user is a not even a raindrop in their ocean and is not worth the monetary expense to them to provide reasonable support for. Of course you're a guest on their platform, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have expectations for how you are treated. The only solution is to move towards platforms where you are in control (like Diaspora) or ones that are small enough to respect you personally. The internet was supposed to bring us closer together, but with things like anonymity and scale, sometimes the worst parts just overwhelm the rest.

Re: My @JFK Twitter account “has been suspended and will not be restored”

#7
post #2

TL;DR - Guy with JFK twitter handle decides to impersonate airport. Outcome is predictable.

Your tldr is missing the point though. They know how they messed up, the point of their post is to show the disproportionate and impersonal response they received to something that was just supposed to be some fun.

Re: My @JFK Twitter account “has been suspended and will not be restored”

#8
> I can’t help feeling like I’m getting the death penalty for a parking violation

I think our obsession with short/cool handles is strange, and even stranger is people building their "empire" on something that can be taken from you so arbitrarily.

It's the same as people expecting to get free-speech on Twitter/FB/Tumblr.

Even domains, which can't be taken from you on a whim, can be made far less "valuable" with the introduction on new TLDs.

Post reply on HN