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Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

bbc.com

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Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#71

Post by Simon_says »

tom_mellior wrote: post #55
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…

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…

Regarding 3, Twitter is a bad platform to say anything interesting.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#72

Post by tom_mellior »

ForHackernews wrote: post #66
tom_mellior wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If you have such an important personal brand to protect, you presumably have something interesting to say Sorry, but do you actually believe this? In my experience, nearly everyone who talks about their "personal brand" is some variation of a dull-as-dishwater marketing drone. Be a human, not a brand.

> Sorry, but do you actually believe this?

I believe it to the extent that if the person "cultivates" GitHub and GitLab profiles, presumably they at least have new releases of interesting features to announce, for whatever software they develop there.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#73

Post by puszczyk »

nindalf wrote: post #46
atticmanatee wrote: post #3

It never ceases to amaze me how Twitter is so unprepared for anything they do. This was something Facebook did a few years ago Even Google+ (rest in peace) had a similar feature. How could they have forgotten that dead people may have used their platform, and living relatives would be upset? Either Twitter is completely run by amateurs - since its inception - or by people who just don’t care. Which one is worst, I wo…

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…

Twitter has a single app

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#74

Post by outadoc »

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…

That's literally the definition of name squatting. If you want to link to your Twitter account, maybe use it, before complaining someone else has made something useful out of it.

Btw this is not at stake in this situation anyway, since you would just need to log into your account and accept the new ToS.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#75

Post by nvrspyx »

trianglem wrote: post #69
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…

I would assume the way Twitter is doing this is deleting inactive accounts and permanently retiring those deleted account names, right?

They plan on releasing the usernames of the deleted accounts for users.

____

previously unavailable usernames will start coming up for grabs after the 11 December cut-off - though Twitter said it would be a gradual process, beginning with users outside of the US.

____

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50567751

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#76

Post by teddyuk »

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…

You are being selfish, no one cares about your personal brand.

Even if your wildest dreams came true and someone started posting crap using your alias on twitter, still no one would care.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#78

Post by teddyuk »

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.

My relatives who died have fewer followers than your relatives who died so yours stay and mine go? Doesn't sound fair!

(my relatives also didnt tweet very often but when they did they were amazing)

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#79

Post by austhrow743 »

kkarakk wrote: post #45
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.

I can understand not making a tool to memorialize users in first 3 years of creation but once twitter became a household name they really SHOULD have already updated their roadmap. In the era of cloud computing, how expensive would it be to make an account readonly and store the paltry data it created in a cached location somewhere? All of their tech decisions feel really reactive nowadays

Why does it have to be specifically the tech holding them back from doing it?

Personally the permanence of internet content is terrifying and by far the worst aspect of it. Potentially there are people like me who would be at the table whenever "what to do with accounts of dead people" is discussed, strongly advocating for deletion. Lacking clear consensus they just left the decision until it had to be made.

Re: Twitter account deletions on 'pause' after outcry

#80

Post by dalore »

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…

So you claim/reserve a private good, with no intention to use it. Just so others can't use it?

That said, should there be some sort of central internet registry where we all registered our unique usernames which will be the same and reserved on every platform?

This reminds me of the days of EFNet where you would fight to have a username. If you stopped using it/disconnected, it was fair game.

I don't think someone would start posting malicious messages to make you look bad. They would just use it for themselves, with their own profile pic and would be obvious it's not you.

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