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X is selling existing users' handles

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#71

Post by 627467 »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #42
arcfour wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

[flagged]

> can we please not play stupid.

Hmmm who is playing stupid?

Internet monolithic social services are run by private companies with TOS that no one reads and change, services that barely anyone pays for (except through their data).

We should definitely normalize this so that people see what the internet actually is for the vast majority of people.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#72

Post by sharifhsn »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #42
arcfour wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

[flagged]

It’s playing stupid to pretend that the theft of a hardly used handle has anything to do with an actual user account. I’m sure if @hac had a presence online, their handle wouldn’t have been sold from under them.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#73

Post by oskarw85 »

arcfour wrote: post #30
bccdee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squatting is something you do to someone else's property. It implies that there is someone else out there with a more legitimate claim to the @hac handle, which there isn't. It's not as if we're talking about @google or something. If I stole your house and sold it because I didn't think you were using it properly, that would clearly be illegitimate. I don't see why the rules change when we talk about someone's twitte…

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

[flagged]

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#74

Post by sunnybeetroot »

Invictus0 wrote: post #18
sunnybeetroot wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, there are security implications if an account was previously linked to someone but then it’s repurposed allowing for fraudulent social engineering use to occur. It’s like as if Gmail gave your email to someone else after a while. They don’t because it’s a bad idea.

Are you aware that domains can be exchanged? And emails can be sent from domains?

Yes, that’s why I don’t recommend people use a custom domain when signing up for accounts given they can eventually be used by someone else. Use email providers that don’t allow your email address to be reused ie gmail, apple

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#75

Post by lamontcg »

anonymousiam wrote: post #29

I was an early adopter on many platforms, and used the same three letter handle on each. I've had the same thing happen to me, even with an account that was being actively used. There's nothing that you can do about it. It's their platform and they can grab your handle if they want it.

Really kind of weird with all these people who think it is just fine for services to take over accounts of people.

Of course, they can literally do whatever they like, it is their platform.

But it would be nice if everyone considered what it would be like for a platform to just arbitrarily nuke their account one way or another.

There's probably a lot of "well they wouldn't do that, I don't have a valuable named account, and I'm a user in good standing" but in reality they can do it for whatever reason they like and there's no actual guardrails--so anyone's account is equally at risk if they decide to.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#76

Post by hayleox »

arcfour wrote: post #30
bccdee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Squatting is something you do to someone else's property. It implies that there is someone else out there with a more legitimate claim to the @hac handle, which there isn't. It's not as if we're talking about @google or something. If I stole your house and sold it because I didn't think you were using it properly, that would clearly be illegitimate. I don't see why the rules change when we talk about someone's twitte…

But you don't own it. X does. It's their service, they are free to apportion handles as they see fit. It is nothing like a house where you have an actual ownership claim through the deed.

It's less like having the house taken away, and more like having your house's street address reassigned to someone else's house. Sure, no one's taken your land. Your deed gives you ownership of parcel #530453080, not of the identifier "123 Vine Street", so nothing you legally own has been taken from you.

But it's your identity. It's the way you've been putting yourself into the world and telling people they can reach you there. It used to be that if someone sent a message to that address, or tried to navigate to that address, they would reach you; but now, they'll be taken to somewhere else, and they perhaps won't even realize what's happened.

And for the ownership issue, sheesh. Yes X, in a literal sense, owns all the usernames. We're talking about whether it's morally right for them to do, not about whether it's illegal. If they had held back these short "valuable" usernames from the beginning, no one would care; it's the act of taking away someone's established identity that is problematic.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#77

Post by collingreen »

addandsubtract wrote: post #51
al_borland wrote: post #5

Dormant account reuse should be ok, assuming proper notice is given. Though 30 days is far too strict. A life event could leave someone offline for a month. Selling I have an issue with, especially the arbitrary selling of “rare” handles. This leaves normal users stuck with junk names and encourages Twitter to be even more of a place for corporate communication above all else.

Heroku just gave me a 30 day warning for being inactive and threatened to delete all my data if I don't log in within the next 30 days.

Will they sell your projects to a account holder after that?

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#78

Post by wtfHN26 »

I have a 6 letter handle that's my first name.

One day I decided to start being more 'social online'.

Head to X. I was unable to log in with my password. No error. Just redirected me back to the log in screen.

I tried password reset. It asked me my last login date.

I couldn't be sure. Still mentioned a possible date.

I added that this is the same email listed on the X/Twitter account.

You can just send me a password reset mail to this email.

They rejected. Tried that a couple of times, then stopped.

----

Started an account on Threads. Quite fun, less crowded and almost no politics on my feed.

----

I decided to create my Blog and write content there.

Will probably create other accounts to post my blog posts to the socials.

But I am not giving a platform the power to cut me out of my account.

----

Videos can be an issue.

Youtube is still the only decent host for Video content.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#79

Post by renewiltord »

I think it’s fine. Someone squatted one of my names on GitHub. No activity. Nothing. I emailed them because I wanted it. They gave it to me.

I’m not going to be called improbable_coaster_2740 just because some fool decided it was a good use of his time to register a bunch of usernames.

Re: X is selling existing users' handles

#80

Post by danaris »

Anon1096 wrote: post #68
alpaca128 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but are twitter handles even precious? Precious enough to be sold for $100k as can be read above. You can't have it both ways, if a handle is worthless then why take it away from someone?

[flagged]

Let me turn that around on you:

If it's really worth $100k, then why on earth shouldn't OP get that $100k if it's going to be taken away from them?

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