X, which people still refer to as Twitter, is not gaining any points with users with every move it makes. It seems like the majority of the changes that the platform has gone through aren't appreciated by most, and taking yet another handle without permission is not the way to win users back.
X Takes the @music Handle
An X user complained about the company taking the handle @music through the platform using a personal account. Jeremy Vaught, the previous owner of the username, says that he created the account 16 years ago and has been running it ever since.
In an email sent to him by X Corp, it was stated that the account will the user handle will be affiliated with the company. As a result, Vaught will be changed to a new user handle. X even provided new usernames for him to choose from.
The options were @musicmusic, @music123, and @musiclover. Another user implied that the username @musicmusic has actually been taken, to which Vaught replied by saying that choosing one makes him "complicit in stealing more accounts.
16 years ago, I created @music and have been running it ever since. Just now, Twitter / X just ripped it away.
— Jeremy Vaught (@jeremyvaught) August 3, 2023
Super pissed pic.twitter.com/ctacWKY9js
The affected user has been assigned the username @musicfan, although the assumption was that it was also taken from another user due to the profile saying that it joined the platform on March 2007, even though Vaught was just recently assigned the handle.
Sure, the company has all the power to take away any user's handle, but it's common courtesy to ask first. Generic handles like @music would fetch a good price because of its rarity, yet there was no mention of any form of compensation for the user.
Unlike the first person who encountered the same thing as the company took the @x username, Vaught was actually quite upset about the move. In fact, he did not get the same perks as the previous owner of @x.
When X Did It the First Time
The first instance that this happened was when X took over the username @x, which belonged to a guy named Gene X Hwang. In exchange for it, the company offered him merchandise from X and a tour of the company headquarters.
X only reached out to Hwang after it had already taken the username, although he said that he was fine with it. Just like the previous owner of @music, Hwang was also offered to have all his data including his followers transferred to a handle of his choosing.
Although, he didn't have much luck with his alternative. As mentioned in Tech Crunch, his handle went from @x to @x1234567998765, which is a pain to remember. Surely there were other alternatives that didn't look like someone's bank account.
Hwang said that he already felt that something like this would happen. To show that he was okay with the move, he joked that he wanted the old Twitter sign as his compensation, seeing as they no longer have the need for it.
Regardless, this just means that anyone with an in-demand handle is not safe from having it taken away by the company if they see fit, which just looks like a way for X to dig the hole it's in a little deeper.
