Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 159 posts

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#51

Post by guessmyname »

Sendotsh wrote: post #15

I understand why some people are upset about it (Eg due to accounts of deceased people), but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I definitely feel like they could compromise and at least delete those blatantly unused ones.

> … but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted.

I created a Twitter account in 2012 and it was immediately put in “private mode” because I didn’t want to post anything; ±7 years later the account is still empty, no posts, no followers, nada. The only reason I created that account was to prevent cybersquatting over my short-and-simple username (which I have to clarify is not “guessmyname”). I’ve done the same thing in other popular websites which I also never use, aside from signing in once in a while to keep the account “active”.

Can you imagine if I release my Twitter account, after almost a decade of constant cultivation of my other professional profiles (GitHub, GitLab, LinkedIn, etc) and then someone starts posting malicious messages to make my username look bad? People will quickly associate these messages with other accounts on the Internet with the same name. I don’t want to take that risk, and I guess other people with inactive Twitter/Facebook/Gmail/etc accounts are the same.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#52

Post by vectorEQ »

pentae wrote: post #33

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

positivity is hardly newsworthy is it? :D just think about it!

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#53

Post by tom_mellior »

duskwuff wrote: post #41
lilyball wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't scrapped their plans for this. They said they'll put it on pause until they've come up with a tool for memorializing accounts. So presumably accounts that are legitimately not going used will still eventually free up. Assuming of course that the account is truly idle and not being used to read without every interacting.

A simple fix would be to make an exception for accounts with >X statuses posted or >Y followers. The inactive accounts that people are worried about losing are the ones that used to be active, or which were significant enough to make a lot of people follow them. However, the bulk of inactive accounts probably have very few (<10) statuses posted or followers, and deleting those is likely to be uncontroversial.

A simple fix would be to pick a character that can not otherwise occur in Twitter handles, like ':'. Then move every inactive @foobar user to @inactive:2019:foobar. If a follower of the original account complains, change "inactive" to "memorialized" or whatever, possibly adjusting the year backwards.

If I choose to squat the now freed up @foobar handle and not do anything with it, next year they can move my inactive version to @inactive:2020:foobar and free up @foobar again for the next person interested in using it.

Any way they solve this, there is a danger of people using bots to mass-squat liberated names to offer them for sale. I don't see any very good way around this. Possibly to give first pick to users with long-standing accounts that share a nontrivial common substring with the liberated handle. For example, if my current Twitter name is @firstname_lastname, and I really want @firstname, I think it might make sense to prioritize me over @random_bot_204safhq23.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#54

Post by rimliu »

cryptozeus wrote: post #35
pentae wrote: post #33

I really sometimes wonder if it would be a net negative or net benefit to humanity if we could just shut down Twitter. I don't use it but I can't remember the last time I heard something positive happening on there. From my standpoint it's all just trolls, hate, arguments, trump, drama and angry mobs using the platform for censorship.

That is because you are not using the platform but watching the news. Guess what is going to be on the news ? Only the outcry. Twitter has matured in last few years and is a fantastic platform if you know whom to follow. People crying about Twitter are not there to connect or learn from others, they are just there to cry and harass others.

Maybe it just looks like a great platform? It gives that nice illusion of communication, engagement, and activity. But would you be really worse off without all that?

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#55

Post by tom_mellior »

guessmyname wrote: post #51
Sendotsh wrote: post #15

I understand why some people are upset about it (Eg due to accounts of deceased people), but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I definitely feel like they could compromise and at least delete those blatantly unused ones.

> … but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I created a Twitter account in 2012 and it was immediately put in “private mode” because I didn’t want to post anything; ±7 years later the account is still empty, no posts, no followers, nada. The only reason I created that account was to prevent cybersquatting over…

1. Most Twitter users are not malicious in the way you suggest.

EDIT: 1'. Twitter has rules and procedures against impersonation: https://help.twitter.com/forms/impersonation though I don't know how effective they are if you are not going by a real name but by an Internet handle that you claim is unique.

2. If you have such an important personal brand to protect, your Twitter account should not be in private mode. It should be public, with a public tweet explaining that you are really you but are choosing not to use Twitter, and where to find you instead.

3. If you have such an important personal brand to protect, you presumably have something interesting to say. Twitter is not a bad platform to say it.

All in all, if they take away your squatted Twitter handle, I wouldn't feel bad for you. Certainly not without a lot more information about why your brand is so special. And, well, if you can keep them from doing it by logging in once every six months, it seems that that is something you can shoulder to protect your brand.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#57

Post by mapcars »

guessmyname wrote: post #51
Sendotsh wrote: post #15

I understand why some people are upset about it (Eg due to accounts of deceased people), but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I definitely feel like they could compromise and at least delete those blatantly unused ones.

> … but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I created a Twitter account in 2012 and it was immediately put in “private mode” because I didn’t want to post anything; ±7 years later the account is still empty, no posts, no followers, nada. The only reason I created that account was to prevent cybersquatting over…

>and then someone starts posting malicious messages to make my username look bad

That's kinda easy, you create a real account and verify it/link it in all your other profiles.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#58

Post by balladeer »

Sendotsh wrote: post #15

I understand why some people are upset about it (Eg due to accounts of deceased people), but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I definitely feel like they could compromise and at least delete those blatantly unused ones.

My first name usernames are taken up by other people on Facebook and Instagram after I deleted my accounts there years ago.

If nothing this has stopped me from again creating accounts on these platforms couple of times I was tempted to.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#59

Post by FeepingCreature »

mapcars wrote: post #57
guessmyname wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … but I was really REALLY hoping to snap my first name which was registered by a European person 10 years ago, has 0 followers, and has never posted. I created a Twitter account in 2012 and it was immediately put in “private mode” because I didn’t want to post anything; ±7 years later the account is still empty, no posts, no followers, nada. The only reason I created that account was to prevent cybersquatting over…

>and then someone starts posting malicious messages to make my username look bad That's kinda easy, you create a real account and verify it/link it in all your other profiles.

That's literally what they did.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#60

Post by nindalf »

kkarakk wrote: post #48
nindalf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is uncharitable, IMO. It is not fair or reasonable to accuse a group of people of amateurism without knowing or understanding the constraints they’re working under. You compare Twitter with Facebook but Facebook has 9X or so employees. Presumably that means that while a feature like memorialisation gets worked on at Facebook, there isn’t enough manpower to work on it at Twitter. They’re too busy working on the c…

After 7 years in tech, i've learnt it's not like dealing with real humans. You're dealing with a business engine - never assume good intent or competence when trying to reason out why a product arrived at it's current level of success or failure

Ah yes, the Littlefinger approach. “What’s the worst reason someone could have for doing the things they do and acting they way they act?”

Notice you still haven’t said how Twitter is supposed to do everything Facebook does but with 1/9th the number of employees. You and everyone else have directly assumed that Twitter has decides not to work on memorialisation because they are malicious or incompetent ... when it’s possible that they just didn’t have enough people to work on it.

Post reply on HN