Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Did you actually own it though, per their TOS? What title was granted, if so? Also, and no offense intended truly, I think your having a grand total of 2 followers after 19 years was apart of their risk calculus in this seizure.
 help



Twitter's official position is that accounts/usernames are not assets of their users (this isn't an Elon-era argument, from what I understand). I found this out when they argued in Alex Jones' bankruptcy hearings that his account should not be repossessed/auctioned off, an argument Alex supported since that's where he's been moving his audience over to to keep the cash rolling in no matter what happens.

https://fortune.com/2024/11/27/x-twitter-elon-musk-account-o...


> Also, and no offense intended truly, I think your having a grand total of 2 followers after 19 years was apart of their risk calculus in this seizure.

My account was hijacked via domain/DNS takeover around the time it was acquired by fElon (due to both Crazy Domains and Twitter support's incompetence — both parties removed 2FA from my accounts, even despite me telling Crazy Domains specifically never to do so). I managed to recover both accounts after kicking up a fuss, but the hijacker was midway through an 3rd party account wiping script, and I'd lost all my followers because of that.

I had 33,300+ tweets in 2015, and a lot of that was private interaction with friends.


couldn't your name have been changed by your hijacker and sold?

It can’t be that hard for you to think of something digital that you (don’t) own and how you would feel if a comparable situation happened to you.

A TOS isn’t some magical shield from legitimate complaints and scrutiny any more than “it’s the law” makes something morally right.


One should know what contracts one is entering into.

But of course, one reads all of the ToS of every service one uses. It’s just something one does.

No, but one should definitely do it for those services where one is investing their time and resources into in a significant manner such that any disruption would be painful.

These responses strike me as unserious and flippant. You’d never accept these responses if it happened to you with something you care about.

Also, comparing a TOS to a formal contract by two parties is a bit disingenuous. A classic “yes it’s technically true” situation. TOS’s are not treated the same way as a signed and dated formal contract. Not even by companies putting them up. They are lower stakes and often pages and pages of legalese that you also skip over at times.


Unpacking the legal framework someone is operating in isn't the same as endorsing it morally, those are two separate questions worth keeping distinct.



Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: