Tangentially, has anyone obtained a username via trademark infringement? How did that go?
Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
21–30 of 266 posts
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#22Wow, this is happening on December 11th? That seems rather abrupt. Why not freeze and hide the accounts instead of deleting? I.e. don't push any tweets to them, or anything else computationally intensive. Then when they log in again, have them click a button to "catch up." Probably not as profitable as annoying a lot of surprised users who try and log in after Dec 12...
I imagine the goal is to free up handles for new users.
The article explicitly states the goal, which is not to free up handles:
"The site said it [the upcoming deletions] was because users who do not log-in were unable to agree to its updated privacy policies."
Although, to your credit, the handles will indeed become available:
"...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."
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#23I wonder what will happen to the twitter accounts of folks who have passed away? Eg. Aaron Swartz: https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw_hv > The cull will include users who stopped posting to the site because they died - unless someone with that person's account details is able to log-in. Yeah, this is bad. EDIT ---- Archive Team is making an effort to archive twitter accounts of dead users. Please…
Seems like they could avoid this problem, keep old accounts, and still free up the namespace by just renaming all these accounts @_archived_originalname (or something better). Maybe with some kind of process to re-activate the account under the original name (or a new one if it has since been taken). And some kind of hands-on resolution process for people who accidentally got deactivated. Feels tractable.
> Twitter said the effort is not, as had been suggested by some users on the network, an attempt to free up usernames.
> The site said it was because users who do not log-in were unable to agree to its updated privacy policies.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#24> In future, the firm said it would also look at accounts where people have logged in but don't "do anything" on the platform. Yes, Twitter is going to purge a lot of accounts, the same accounts Twitter boasted about having pre IPO in order to fake growth.
That sucks! I have an account. I log in but I never post. I only use it to follow some interesting accounts —that is all. I don’t contact customer service i don’t feign outrage I don’t virtue signal I don’t post memes... it’s by all means passive. WTF, I just want to follow some accounts which disseminate useful information.
Do you come into contact with Twitter advertising? Then you’re probably fine.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#25> In future, the firm said it would also look at accounts where people have logged in but don't "do anything" on the platform. Yes, Twitter is going to purge a lot of accounts, the same accounts Twitter boasted about having pre IPO in order to fake growth.
That sucks! I have an account. I log in but I never post. I only use it to follow some interesting accounts —that is all. I don’t contact customer service i don’t feign outrage I don’t virtue signal I don’t post memes... it’s by all means passive. WTF, I just want to follow some accounts which disseminate useful information.
> Twitter will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than six months, unless they log in before an 11 December deadline.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#26I wonder what will happen to the twitter accounts of folks who have passed away? Eg. Aaron Swartz: https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw_hv > The cull will include users who stopped posting to the site because they died - unless someone with that person's account details is able to log-in. Yeah, this is bad. EDIT ---- Archive Team is making an effort to archive twitter accounts of dead users. Please…
This was my first thought at reading the headline before clicking through. Thank you for sharing the form from archive team.
My first thought was Hal Finney, whose account I occasionally browse for a reminder of what twitter was like 10 years ago.
>Harold Thomas Finney II (May 4, 1956 – August 28, 2014) was a developer for PGP Corporation, and was the second developer hired after Phil Zimmermann. In his early career, he was credited as lead developer on several console games. He also was an early bitcoin contributor and received the first bitcoin transaction from bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto [1]
This is only one example. So many historical figures gone to free up some vanity names.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Finney_(computer_scientist...
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#27I wonder what will happen to the twitter accounts of folks who have passed away? Eg. Aaron Swartz: https://twitter.com/aaronsw https://twitter.com/aaronsw_hv > The cull will include users who stopped posting to the site because they died - unless someone with that person's account details is able to log-in. Yeah, this is bad. EDIT ---- Archive Team is making an effort to archive twitter accounts of dead users. Please…
I worked with a guy who died of a heart attack. Every year LinkedIn asks me to congratulate him having worked X+N years at the company. You have to wonder when they'll give up.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sucks! I have an account. I log in but I never post. I only use it to follow some interesting accounts —that is all. I don’t contact customer service i don’t feign outrage I don’t virtue signal I don’t post memes... it’s by all means passive. WTF, I just want to follow some accounts which disseminate useful information.
> Twitter will begin deleting accounts that have been inactive for more than six months, unless they log in before an 11 December deadline.
I’m responding to my parent poster who quotes: “In future, the firm said it would also look at accounts where people have logged in but don't "do anything" on the platform.”
I guess it depends on what “don’t do anything” translates to in Twitterspeak.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like they could avoid this problem, keep old accounts, and still free up the namespace by just renaming all these accounts @_archived_originalname (or something better). Maybe with some kind of process to re-activate the account under the original name (or a new one if it has since been taken). And some kind of hands-on resolution process for people who accidentally got deactivated. Feels tractable.
> Twitter said the effort is not, as had been suggested by some users on the network, an attempt to free up usernames. > The site said it was because users who do not log-in were unable to agree to its updated privacy policies.
That.. makes sense, but is almost suspiciously proactive.
Re: Twitter prepares for cull of inactive users
#30If the usernames free up, I wonder if this going to lead to something synonymous to domain squatting?
I doubt they'd free up the usernames. Username reuse has problems with reputation hijacking, either for paid likes, spam, or making it look like the user said something they didn't. It also creates a bad experience with historic @users in tweets, and no one wants that bad PR tweets pretending to be from someone deceased.
They could rewrite @mention urls on recycled accounts to a /recycled page that explains this.