81–90 of 90 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
@pg hasn't posted on HN for two years. Can I have his username?
@pg is paying for the servers
However, Aaron Swartz is not paying for reddit servers anymore, can I have u/AaronSw then? Has been inactive for 10 years.
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.
Justifying your actions isn't gaslighting. Blaming someone isn't gaslighting. Gaslighting involves presenting a false history of things that did not happen. There is real data here that there are a huge number of inactive accounts.
> The term may also be used to describe a person (a "gaslighter") who presents a false narrative to another group or person, thereby leading them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed.
A false narrative is not necessarily including a false history of things. He is spinning a false narrative by using facts, but presenting them in a way that is misleading. like a politician. He is inventing a problem ("dead accounts are a huge problem that is causing my valued users many issues") and presenting a solution for that new problem that is mainly benefitting himself. All social media platforms have a huge number of inactive accounts, but that's for some reason only an issue sometimes. For example when Elon Musk takes over Twitter. Generally these platforms welcome inactive accounts, because it is inflating their numbers. Now Durov wants more money and he is inventing a problem and pointing at the users as the culprit.
He is achieving two (edit: tree) things with that:
1) He is gaslighting users into believing that it is their own fault that they lost their account name, because they have not logged in for three months, when stealing account names is actually just an arbitrary decision that he made.
2) He is incentivizing occasional users to log in more often, so they can keep their name. I guess he can then later use these numbers to sell ad space: "Unlike on other platforms, our users are much more engaged.
Edit: 3) Money
Earlier quoted context omitted.
@pg is paying for the servers
But he does not need the account name, right? However, Aaron Swartz is not paying for reddit servers anymore, can I have u/AaronSw then? Has been inactive for 10 years.
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…
I've successfully taken a username from a squatter by reaching out to github support. As long as the user doesn't have active private stuff they might be willing to help you get the username.
Also archival purposes exist, especially for code repos.
Telegram allows editing post, some of those"stolen usernames" were of channels that were active; i.e. posts were edited, and links were replaced, comments were enabled so channel masters can keep connected with their audience.
Those channels were also compensating for the absence of advanced bio, status, and as introduction methods where their links were posted on the profiles' "about me" section.
Those channels, as many of Telegram users who were affected say that they did nothing wrong, their channels, though have no new posts, were actually "active and alive", and that their only fault was that they were using some Telegram features that Telegram itself did not respect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People lose their gmail accounts all the time for weird reasons. Maybe you are specifically talking about a world where everyone self hosts their own servers?
Gmail sucks, but not for any reason caused by email the protocol.
If email was better designed, it would not allow these situations to happen. For example, if server operators didn't own your account, there would be no problem.
It is a protocol issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And there's also a reason lobsters isn't the same vibe as HN.
What's the vibe of Lobster?