According to Hwang, the company now formerly known as Twitter did offer “an alternative handle with the history of the @x account” so that his original account, complete with its posts and followers, could live on and continue to be used.
What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.
Let’s be real now. That name is temporary until he chooses his new one. Read the whole article. It’s rediculous enough without making things seem even worse.
But look at that username. It definitely not randomly generated. Someone at Twitter pick that new name. They just give someone with the shortest username possible (1 character) the longest possible username (15 characters), and they do so by pressing the number row back and forth until they hit the username characters size limit. If it’s not a mockery then I don’t know what is.
It’s not mockery, it is the logical thing to do. They don’t want to allocate a username a person would actually want, so naturally they pick the longest possible username, with arbitrary and meaningless contents. Would you have been happier if it was @xloremipsumdolo? @xtemporaryusern? Like what was the right thing for the technician who had to pick the name to do, in your mind?
I thought long and hard about this, and you’re right. If it were me, no matter what the new username is, I’m still going to be mad. But I feel like I’ll be less mad (just a little bit less) if they select a completely random username (with sensible length, like 8 characters or less), indicating it’s chosen by an impartial random number generator instead of chosen by someone who in my mind is messing with me (image of Elon Musk laughing at me coming in my mind).
I wouldn’t say it’s limited to centralized social media. The admin of Lemmy.world could go into its database and do whatever they want to my username, too. And other instances can feel free to steal my name if I didn’t grab it first.
To be fair, no user “owns” their account. Everything about your Twitter account, from the user name to the data you tweet belongs to Twitter. I hesitate to call it a dick move. It’s more of an Elon move.
Right. Although I don’t support it, but if the logic is that they can supress stories and say you don’t have a free speech on a private platform, then they can take away your handle because technically it’s theirs.
Why is this news? It is their platform. You have your handle at their discretion. Getting paid for it? Hahahaha. Riiiight. This isn’t some domain that is actually owned. You own literally nothing on social media platforms. Whoever theorized he’d be paid is moronic and a perfect example of a twit.
No, because if you don’t like it you are free to leave. The Reddit migration to Lemmy is a perfect example of that. Reddit doesn’t want third party apps and can do as they please. Object, protest, whatever, but as long as you keep logging in they don’t care and will keep moving forward.
Saying someone is abusing the power they hold as the service host, when participation is 100% voluntary, with nothing to personally gain, is rather moronic. They have no real power, only the perception of it.
And yet, it means jack all since you have 0 control over it. You can cry foul all you want, but the only thing that matters is whether or not you leave. Their power, and ability to abuse it, stems solely from that. Having a discussion of ethics when Musk is involved… Just go yell at a wall.
Again? What? What is “again”? What personal attacks?
I’m asking you what you meant when you brought up and compared Twitter to segregation. Because you seem to have some different meaning of whites only businesses.
You can complain, but that doesn’t make it news worthy. People feel entitled to demand things of a free service. Now if you paid for it, you’d be on to something.
When talking about paying for a handle they give out, that’s where this discussion goes. No legal obligation to pay for what they already own and can repurpose. A public discussion means nothing if you’re going to just steer clear if the fact some idiots thought he’d be paid for a twit handle.
This is a blazingly hot take but you are entirely correct, and people need to hear it. People will scream “FUCK SPEZ” while logging in to 400 different reddit tabs daily and continuing to feed a corrupt (and soon to be) corporate entity.
I’d be more upset if this was something actually important like a government website or something people’s lives depend on, but yeah, it’s not. It’s just entertainment. Folks need to move on.
Its their platform and their reputation. If some users don’t like what “Musk” do, then they have right to make and read news about it, regardless of de jure rights, EULA and whatnot.
PS: And yes, the owner’s account was renamed in a rather nonchalant “fuck you” way. I would never learn about this, without these news.
I’m not insinuating it wouldn’t be bad press for them. It’s simply the reality of being on someone else’s platform. You exist on their service at their pleasure. They can shut everything down tomorrow and you are owed nothing, but that does not free them of criticism.
It’s news because as the owners of information channels can do as they please, it’s shitty when they don’t even pretend to be neutral. Which is why they usually do. Not a hard thing to follow and no, thinking that a payment would be issued isn’t a sign of a “twit,” it’s just one way they could have not seemed like dicks who do as they please.
If you are thinking of building a brand on twitter (or X) or have an existing brand, it is important to know that twitter (or X) are willing just take your name away from you if they feel like it without recourse.
Of course it is always technically possible to take a user name. But most sites make it clear that they wont risk damaging brands by protecting against fake clones and allowing companies to keep their user names. That is why it is news.
I mean you agree to that when you sign up on their service so you should know better than to build your entire identity on something you dont own. Just like you wouldnt have Lemmy be your one point of a brand on someone elses instance because you dont know if it will shut down tomorrow
Yes, I agree. I don’t see how that makes the information any less important. If Lemmy or Twitter was going to shutdown tomorrow I would want to hear about it.
Sounds like a you problem if you’re relying on a social media service to help you build a brand. If you pay, you have legal recourse. If you’re there for free advertising, sucks to base your brand on hopes and dreams.
It’s showing a rather funny lack of tact, soft skills and PR skills. Google can take your Gmail account too, but it’s rather unheard of (say Google launches a product name “GreatDay” - it’s absolutely unheard of for Google to just grab the “GreatDay” handle from Gmail - in fact such a move would sent terror chills up many marketing departments around the world honestly).
I’m not going to blame you for not understanding just how ridiculous this is, but this sends all the wrong messages - i.e. could I pay Elon to grab someone else’s Twitter handle because I can make a better business claim for it? That sure is what this seems to imply
Elon is not Twitter/X. Sure, he could pump all his personal money into it and keep it afloat indefinitely and I’m sure he’s putting in personal money… but at the end of the day they’re separate entities.
You want a business to survive on its own funding. If I were him I would try to put in as little personal money as possible. Which is why we’re seeing stuff like them getting evicted from office spaces. He doesn’t want to just burn money.
Elon is not Twitter but Twitter is Elon. It used to be a public company, but now it is his personal property. There is no difference between Elon losing a dollar and Twitter losing a dollar. If he can use his personal resources to manipulate Twitter’s market value or appeal to advertises, he can and will because anything else is leaving money on the table. They are not separate entities.
I dislike Musk as much as the next person, but most of the hate of Musk & Twitter/X fails to make the distinction that they are not the same thing. At this point, any additional capital injected into X is throwing good money after really bad money.
From what i have read, most of his money is in the stock value of tesla. If other car makers take away teslas market share then elons wealth will soon follow, and right now he does not exactly do any of “his” companies any favours with his ego and business decisions.
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