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

Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 90 posts

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#51

Post by ls15 »

Arainach wrote: post #45
ls15 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having inactive usernames is not an actual issue when people can just use other names. He is just trying to make more money by selling them and he is blaming it on the users. "See, they did not use the names in the artificially short period that I defined. I had no other option than taking them away and selling them to the highest bidder." Obviously he's not only selling Iranian names.

Regardless of whether you consider this action just, it is not gaslighting. Gaslighting has a specific definition, and this isn't it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

> manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality.

That's what he did. Telling users it is their own fault that he had to take their names and sell them. You were causing issues, because you did not log in for three months.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#52

Post by WilTimSon »

ls15 wrote: post #44
puppable wrote: post #38

Interesting how many green accounts are in this thread describing the same problem with the exact same typing style. All of them made within the last two hours.

People using throwaways, because they don't want to connect their HN identity to their TG identity?

Those people should at least bother to learn HN rules then, because some of these comments are... yeesh.

That said, how mad can you be about some username that you'd sign up for an extra account just to complain?

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#53

Post by MiguelX413 »

WilTimSon wrote: post #52
ls15 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People using throwaways, because they don't want to connect their HN identity to their TG identity?

Those people should at least bother to learn HN rules then, because some of these comments are... yeesh. That said, how mad can you be about some username that you'd sign up for an extra account just to complain?

They may also just be new here, spreading news to HN

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#54

Post by Lucent »

puppable wrote: post #38

Interesting how many green accounts are in this thread describing the same problem with the exact same typing style. All of them made within the last two hours.

Almost certainly it's a cybersquatter upset his cache of squatted names is being seized and is attempting to manufacture dissent. Recommend the site owner look at IPs and see how many HN accounts he has as well and flush those, too.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#55

Post by NayamAmarshe »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #48
NayamAmarshe wrote: post #9

It happened to channels and groups that were inactive for a long time. Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem. And I was mad at first but it was equally my fault for leaving my public group inactive for more than 10 months, which is probably why the username disappeared. It's a real problem on other social media websites too. For example, a totally inactiv…

Three months seems like a rather short time. Twitter gave me 5 years of never having sent a single tweet before telling me they were closing my account.

Yeah sorry, not 3 months. I checked the dates again, the last post was on November 10 and I lost the username in August, so 9-10 months and around the same time as Durov's announcement about 70% of telegram usernames being inactive.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#56

Post by t-writescode »

ls15 wrote: post #51
Arainach wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether you consider this action just, it is not gaslighting. Gaslighting has a specific definition, and this isn't it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

> manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality. That's what he did. Telling users it is their own fault that he had to take their names and sell them. You were causing issues, because you did not log in for three months.

Ironically, what you are doing is gaslighting by trying to redefine it and say that’s what it’s always meant.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#57

Post by ShockedUnicorn »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #9

It happened to channels and groups that were inactive for a long time. Durov did mention this in a message a few months ago that username squatters were becoming a problem. And I was mad at first but it was equally my fault for leaving my public group inactive for more than 10 months, which is probably why the username disappeared. It's a real problem on other social media websites too. For example, a totally inactiv…

My issue is that any external links to my channel now no longer works. Luckily I can update some of the links, but I can't do that with tweets.

I'll just have to be better at uploading so this hopefully won't happen again.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#58

Post by WilTimSon »

MiguelX413 wrote: post #53
WilTimSon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people should at least bother to learn HN rules then, because some of these comments are... yeesh. That said, how mad can you be about some username that you'd sign up for an extra account just to complain?

They may also just be new here, spreading news to HN

Then my advice about sticking to a dignified tone and knowing the rules still applies. Happy to have more people sharing but there's a reason HN isn't the same vibe as Reddit.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#59

Post by concinds »

stiltzkin wrote: post #31

Can you prove your channel was active and not dead just for squatting?

For what it's worth, I couldn't find any links anywhere on the net (Google, Bing...) to "https://t.me/kissfm". I've searched for even small Telegram channels I follow, and they all show up in search results.

Re: Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction

#60

Post by ls15 »

t-writescode wrote: post #56
ls15 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> manipulating someone so as to make them question their own reality. That's what he did. Telling users it is their own fault that he had to take their names and sell them. You were causing issues, because you did not log in for three months.

Ironically, what you are doing is gaslighting by trying to redefine it and say that’s what it’s always meant.

I am not redefining it. I took that quote from the wikipedia page that GP linked.
Post reply on HN