this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023

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After rebranding, X took @x from its original Twitter owner and offered him merch (www.npr.org)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Gene X Hwang knew his days on Twitter as @x were numbered.

"Elon had been kind of tweeting about X previously," Hwang said. "So I kind of knew, you know, I had an inkling that this was going to happen. I didn't really know when."

Since 2007, Hwang's username on the site was @x — but after Elon Musk renamed the social media platform to X earlier this week, it was only a matter of time before the company commandeered the handle.

The news came shortly after Hwang had competed in a pinball tournament in Canada. "So when I landed and fired up my phone, I just got all these messages and I was like: 'What is what is going on?' "

Hwang received an email from the company explaining that his account data would be preserved, and he'd get a new handle. It offered Hwang merchandise, a tour of its offices and a meeting with company management as compensation.

Hwang's account is one of the latest casualties in the chaos following Musk's takeover of the social media company. On Monday, Twitter's iconic blue bird logo was replaced with the letter "X."

The rebrand is the company's next step in creating what Musk has called "the everything app." Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino envision the platform becoming a U.S. parallel to WeChat — a hub for communication, banking and commerce that's become a part of everyday life in China.

But experts are skeptical X will be able to become an "everything app." "I'm not sure he has enough trust from his user base to get people to actually exchange money or attach any type of financial institution to his app," Jennifer Grygiel, a professor at Syracuse University, told NPR.

Hwang is among those who have been looking for Twitter alternatives. "I've been checking out, you know, other options like Threads and Mastodon and Bluesky," he said. "I'm still on Twitter for now, but ... it's changed a lot. So we'll see how much longer I'm on there." Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They should have offered them @twitter as a replacement.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

@The_Hwang_Formerly_Known_as_X

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"Elon took my handle @x and all I got was this loosy t-shirt"

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Hwang received an email from the company explaining that his account data would be preserved, and he’d get a new handle. It offered Hwang merchandise, a tour of its offices and a meeting with company management as compensation.

Seriously.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago

As if punishing him by taking his name was bad, he also got threatened with meeting Elon

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Seriously that would be great lol. At least it would be a funny reference.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That photo looks like the swastika on the Reichstag before the Soviets blew it up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think you mean the swastika emblem on the Eagle on the Nuremburg stadium that the US blew up, but yes, I thought that too.

EDIT: Wasn't on an Eagle, was just a huge swastika.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

There was no Hakenkreuz on the Reichstag, you are thinking of the Stadium in Nürnberg and it was the Americans who blew it up :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

I'm not encouraging or condoning this sort of behavior, but I would be quite amused to see some creative vandals go make some modifications to Elon's little monument.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (10 children)

That random dude never owned the username, nor was he remotely noteworthy in any way. Twitter took it because Twitter owns their own site. Nothing is wrong here. Just like how my instance owner has the total right to do whatever they like to my account, including changing my username.

[–] [email protected] 99 points 11 months ago (2 children)

We know. Twitter had every right to perform this dick move. They did nothing technically wrong, in acting shitty to one of their users.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Agreed. I find it fascinating how hard it is for some people to understand the difference between "lawful" and "morally right".

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For a lot of people, a shocking amount really the law is the closest to morals or empathy they possess. They also seem to spend a lot of time looking for ways to work around said law too

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

"If there's a loophole, you'd be a moron not to use it. Also, the loopholes are created intentionally by those with the wealth and power to take advantage of them."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

I guess lemmy isn't immune to dumb elog reply guys

[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I mean. Sorta.

When you use some service you have some expectation that they’ll treat you fairly and predictably. Sure their Eula let’s them do whatever the fuck they want legally but that doesn’t change the fact that if they opt take certain actions (like arbitrary taking people’s usernames) then they risk losing user trust.

If the admin just took your username one day would you just quietly accept it? What if they edited or deleted your comments? Would you just shrug and say “well it’s their site they can do what they want” and just walk away?

Look what happened when Spez got caught editing posts on Reddit, for example. Massive user outcry.

Dude’s allowed to be annoyed about it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'd say it's a bit worse than that. There is a market for unique usernames, and single character Twitter handles are some of the most valueable. This user has had that value taken from them, and while Twitter/X reserves the right to claim the handle they must reasonably compensate the owner of that value.

Twitter offering merch is likely an attempt to get them to accept some form of compensation, so they can claim the matter is resolved.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I bet you it was Twitter merch, too, and not X; they must have a lot of worthless bird paraphernalia lying around the X headquarters 🙄

Elon is not only a douche, he's a cheap ass-douche.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (17 children)

It's not illegal, Elon is just an asshole.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, legally it's fine. Societiarily, it's not really fine. If you are building a service and I put on my business cards this is the address you can reach me at through this service, removing that address without warning is unacceptable. If you want me to trust the service you are building is reliable and worthy of my business then you better be prepared to treat the data the service owns and the choices the users make with lots of respect.

For example, if your lemmy instance owner took your name and started using it for their own purposes without warning but sent you a quick message that read "I took your account name, but hey, as compensation you can just tell me what other handle you want and you can have it. Also, I know I am really awesome, so if you want to meet people who have talked to me, let me know and I can set that up." What would you do? Would you stay on that instance or would you go find a service that you feel is reliable and trustworthy?

Honestly, I can probably safely assume you'd find another service because your account age is the same as mine and that is around the time that Reddit started to show they were not a trustworthy service. So kind of proof that this is legally fine but societally not going to instill trust.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think we agree legally it's fine, but I still disagree and think it's ethically fine. Companies realize putting their point of contacts on third party services is risky and should be mitigating that.

Like a company should have their own email domain rather then Gmail. There are things you can digitally own, like the domain name itself because you purchase it and then have a contract with it.

If Twitter acted as a service where you buy your profile and make an agreement, that would be unethical at that point, and also illegal. Twitter users shouldn't be under the impression they perpetually own their account handle, they haven't paid anything and simply claimed it through a signup or username change. That's not comparable to say, buying a domain, where that would be extremely unethical and pretty sure illegal. Also impersonation is bit of a funny topic to bring up with Twitter right now lol, considering how messed up the verification is.

I would agree with you if social media services were treated as like a utility and usernames were contracted as such. Which I actually do wish was a thing, it'd be a much healthier ecosystem with much stronger protections. But that's a different topic.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You do sign a contract with any website when you make an account. It's the terms of service. Now no, it doesn't say in it that you are entitled to the account name you've picked but also it feels like you are still mixing up legal and ethical in some ways. Even if you feel like it's ethically fine you are still giving examples of ways it would be illegal instead of unethical. It sounds like the only way you feel it would be unethical is that if it would be illegal.

That said, people also pay for Twitter now. Would it change anything in your mind if @X had been verified, purchased Twitter blue, and still had their account taken away without warning? Still legal. Terms of Service don't state you can keep your account handle.

That said, there is still a social contract in a lot of people's minds that when you create an account on a website that it's your account and your data. Breaking the social contract is unethical and results in backlash. A lot of people left Reddit specifically because Reddit broke a social contract. The API they provided was free and the API being free was typical at the time. There isn't any legal recourse you can take but you can certainly stop using their services. Which is why most people are here now on Lemmy.

So I don't feel like you need a legal contract to break to be unethical and I don't think the social contract is being upheld.

That said I do agree in some regards with you because Discord did this same thing on a mass scale. Everyone's usernames were changed. There were 3 months of warning and the changes rolled out per-register date. So you could claim your new username before others if you had registered on the service sooner. I lost my username of choice because of it and frankly, I don't like it but I don't blame Discord for the change. They made their intentions clear as to why and gave lots of warning time. So really singling out a specific user and not giving them warning time is unjustified here. Not the actual changing of the username.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I just don't understand where this expectation that accounts are owned are coming from. There's no language anywhere in the signup that implies this, nor is it the case for any other website. I don't know where this expectation is coming from.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

If you're playing a game of pick-up basketball, and your team is in the lead, and some guy on the other team says "Nevermind, I don't want to lose. Give me my ball, I going home." I'm curious how you would react. He owned the ball, and you signed no contract at the start of the game, so, what's your take on his action?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (5 children)

It's that people put time into their accounts and into the service. Those accounts create content and are the reason the service can make money. The social contract created is in part because users are the product of a lot of services. So the users feel like if they are the product they are entitled (somewhat rightfully) to simply have a reliable service that doesn't change without notice. Again, this is a social contract, not a legal or written one.

It's like in the playground. If you are building a sandcastle in the sandpit and someone comes and knocks it over. It's not illegal. There was no written contract that said you owned that sand. In fact, it's the opposite, that sand is provided for everyone to share. It doesn't matter who knocked over your sandcastle, that person is still a jerk. Even if it was the owner of the sandpit. You spent time creating and forming something. That work is something you are entitled to. Yet someone takes it away without even a warning. Is that ethical? Is that okay? Can I just knock over your sandcastle without recourse just because I own the sand? I did say you could use it and there was a social contract created that you would use the sand and I would let you. I am technically still letting you use the sand but I am taking or destroying the work you put into building that sandcastle.

So really the question is, if I provide the raw materials for you to borrow and you do a ton of work with those materials, do I have the right to claim your work?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

For whatever their other faults, companies like Google and Microsoft are very reliable and a very low risk.

X formerly known as Twitter is very unreliable and a huge risk. There's a reason it's hemorrhaging advertisers right now. It's a poor business decision.

I think it's fine for Musk to make poor business decision. I don't own any stock in any Musk companies. It's Musk's free market right to make bad business choices that drive users and advertiser and businesses away. That's the beauty of the free market. Businesses will find a better place to do business.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago

To be clear, "having the right to do whatever they want" does not equal "they're not dickbags for doing it."

Musk randomly decided to rebrand and stole a username he liked from someone because he's an asshole playing at feudal lord. Sure, there's no legal repercussions because it is his website. Doesn't mean he's not a fucking douche for doing it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

While this is true, the act erodes confidence between users and the platform. (Whatever confidence that still remains)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

After all, it's not illegal to be an asshole.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

The thing that's wrong here is that people use/trust a proprietary web service as if it was a part of public infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

My very first mastadon handle was taken from me because it was two characters and matched one of the admin’s initials. I agree they had every right to do it.