Gene X Hwang and Jeremy Vaught watched as now, by order of Elon Musk, ran out of their usernames on Twitter, now X. The user of the first was @x, while the second had @music.
What could they do to prevent it? What could we do?
Everything happens due to the change of name of Twitter by X. The decision of Elon Musk led to the company to keep usernames for commercial uses, regardless of the time they had with them.
Alls well that ends well
—x (@x12345678998765) July 26, 2023
Thus, the photographer even had it since 2007. He received an email from Elon Musk’s company informing him about the fact, and they assigned him another user, @x12345678998765.
Was there any compensation from the company? They only offered him commercial products and a meeting with executives.
Vaught, a software developer, suffered something very similar to what Hwang did. He opened his @music account in 2007, building a community of nearly half a million followers.
16 years ago, I created @music and have been running it ever since. Just now, Twitter/X just ripped it away.
super pissed pic.twitter.com/ctacWKY9js— Jeremy Vaught (@jeremyvaught) August 3, 2023
no matter what, X kept his username. But unlike Hwang, the old Twitter did offer him options for a new name, taking @musicfan. In addition, he transferred his former followers to him.
What could they do, or what would we do? if something similar happened to us?
The terms of X, former Twitter, on the change of @ user
Not much. According to CNBC, X’s terms of service, last updated in May, state that the platform can claim usernames.
“We may remove or refuse to distribute any content on the services, limit the distribution or visibility of any content on the service, suspend or terminate users and claim usernames without liability to you.” indicate the terms.
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This would generate disagreement among users, especially commercials. The creators can not trusting the platform enough to establish itself for the long term.
“I was definitely proud having built @music with half a million followers or so”, Jeremy Vaught told CNBC. “And I am a software developer. I had been thinking about what I could build around this to potentially capitalize on my audience.”
The things of X, the old Twitter of Elon Musk.