• varoth
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      14511 months ago

      As all billionaires are. Along with unempathetic sociopathic psychopaths.

      • Kantiberl
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        11 months ago

        That may be the most tautological sentence I’ve ever read.

      • @AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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        3411 months ago

        I can’t fathom having the power to save our at least change millions of lives…but instead choose to leech more wealth from the people that need it most. And systematically make the world worse. It’s a sickness.

        There are no good billionaires.

        • DominusOfMegadeus
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          1111 months ago

          I would build SO much low income, homeless, and transition housing. I would also start my own line of bamboo products and packaging to replace plastic.

          • @kklusz@lemmy.world
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            411 months ago

            The most important part of what you said is that you’d build “SO much” housing. If we’d just let the free market build all the housing it wants without letting NIMBYs get in the way, we’d have largely solved the housing crisis.

            • @ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works
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              1411 months ago

              Except we already have more houses than there are homeless people. The problem is the empty houses have ridiculous price tags due to corporate landlords and landlords refusing the sell and only rent (also at ridiculous prices)

              • @kklusz@lemmy.world
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                311 months ago

                Vacancy rates in the places where people actually want to live are really low. Besides, are people not allowed to have vacation homes?

                Market price is a function of supply and demand. We’ve been under building housing for years.

                • @Sanctus@lemmy.world
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                  311 months ago

                  Alright but life never promised anyone these luxuries. I don’t give a fuck if someone can’t have a vacation home because it means more people without one can have one. People act like freedom to do whatever the hell they want no matter how negatively it effects everyone else is their universal right. The Universe doesn’t give a fuck about your summer home, nature doesn’t give a fuck that you worked hard to get it. It will all be swallowed all the same if our main goal still is not perpetual survival. That may be authoritarian, but it is also the truth. We never left the game of survival we just plastered concrete and asphalt on top of it and pretended we were removed.

      • Refurbished Refurbisher
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        811 months ago

        Well yeah. If you weren’t sociopathic, you wouldn’t be holding onto all of your money, but would instead be trying to help people with it.

          • @rm_dash_r_star@lemm.ee
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            111 months ago

            Being a billionaire means using it to acquire more money which provides more power which provides more control. Shit floats to the top.

  • @redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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    23011 months ago

    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.

    You can’t make this shit up. God damn!

  • skellener
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    10911 months ago

    Shitty social media website does shitty thing and continues enshittification full throttle.

  • @NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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    6711 months ago

    What short, catchy username did Musk’s company change Hwang’s handle to? @x12345678998765.

    It could have been worse.

    They could have named him “X Æ A-12” 😵‍💫

  • @errer@lemmy.world
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    6411 months ago

    As much as this sucks, this person has no rights to their name and never did. Stop using the platform and giving it attention!

    • @li10@feddit.uk
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      2611 months ago

      Yeah, it’s not like they ever bought that name from Twitter so there’s no real argument that they actually own it, even if they’d ever bought the checkmark BS.

      Money and a rename would have been a goodwill gesture, and expecting any goodwill from this version of twitter is insanity.

    • @Terevos@lemm.ee
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      1711 months ago

      I don’t think anyone is saying they are owed money. But just taking the handle with nothing in return is really not nice.

      They could at least give the guy like Twitter Blue for life or whatever the heck premium is called now.

      • @grandkaiser@lemmy.world
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        111 months ago

        Is that not what the title says? Like, i’m new to Lemmy so maybe i’m confused? Didn’t OP write “He got no money from it :(” in the title?

      • girlfreddy
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        1811 months ago

        Being downvoted is not indicative of voters’ anger. It’s simply showing they don’t agree with you.

        Pulling the victim card is revealing a shit-ton about you tho.

        • @Pika@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I see why people use downvoting this way, especially since that was the norm on reddit which a good portion of the base fled from, I find the same issue I had with downvotes on reddit to apply here as well though. I try to advocate down votes to be not out of personal opinion, but a reflection that the content is either useless or harmful to the existing conversation. This allows posts that are actually useful and contribute to the discussion to exist even if they are unpopular to peoples opinion. Just because you don’t like the post, doesn’t mean the post isn’t true or useful, which is why I find that form of downvoting ideology to be harmful overall.

          That being said, I would find the parent comment you replied to as constructive to the conversation…Up until they started egging people on with “is getting people super angry” I wouldn’t call this being downvoted for not agreeing, I would call it being downvoted for not being constructive to the post at hand(as there’s no need to actively try to get people to rage at you with a post like that)

        • @anteaters@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          So what do users not agree to in my post but do with in this?

          Also, what a fucking Reddit thing to do.

  • ChamrsDeluxe
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    5611 months ago

    Well I went ahead and did a mastadon. No clue what I am doing, but… Woohoo?

    I’m chamrsdeluxe there too I guess. Idk

    • pjhenry1216
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      2711 months ago

      You’d want to include your instance as part of your handle. I know, it’s not as intuitive as a centralized service, but it is a requirement, especially when sharing the name elsewhere. So, your Lemmy account is chamrsdeluxe@lemmy.world. Folks on lemmy.world don’t need that, but folks on another instance (like me) would. I can get it from clicking your username, but there’s no way to figure it out for a different platform from here.

      • TWeaK
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        411 months ago

        If you type it like this you’ll get an instance agnostic link (at least on instances v0.18 and above, not necessarily in apps): /u/ChamrsDeluxe@lemmy.world.

        You can also select from a dropdown box on the website to send a mention, however this link goes to their instance rather than your own: @ChamrsDeluxe@lemmy.world. The code for this is [@ChamrsDeluxe@lemmy.world](https://lemmy.world/u/ChamrsDeluxe), you can type this manually and replace any link text in between the square brackets, so generally [link text](https://userinstance/u/user).

        The old pre-0.17 instance agnostic links were [link text](/c/community@instance) or [link text](/u/user@instance), but the new versions will automatically generate without link code:

        • /c/community@instance
        • !community@instance
        • /u/user@instance (does not send a mention)

        Also, kbin doesn’t federate properly. You might not even see this comment over there…

        • @neutron@thelemmy.club
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          211 months ago

          If I’m reading this right there are two ways to indicate a user including its instance:

          • /u/username@example.com
          • @username@example.com

          Which one is the recommended one?

          • TWeaK
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            11 months ago

            The first one will generate a link automatically with no code (on lemmy v0.18 and above, not necessarily in apps - it doesn’t seem to work in Jerboa currently). This link is instance agnostic, meaning the viewer sees a link in their own instance, rather than the example.com instance. This means you can send them a DM, or open their comments and reply to them.

            The second one isn’t enough on its own, it needs to be in the form [link text](https://example.com/u/user). However, if you start typing @user@example.com on the website, a pop up box will allow you to select the user and generate the link code for you - it will give you [@user@example.com](https://example.com/u/user). This version is not agnostic, it takes you to the user’s instance, however it does send a mention to the user’s inbox.

            Hopefully in a future update they will combine these two, so that an agnostic link will also send a mention, and so the mention link will auto-generate and be agnostic. Right now, one is for linking to a profile you want to interact with, the other is for calling that person into the thread with a mention.

            Edit: Just for a little more fun variation, it looks like Jerboa handles the @user@instance link as if it were instance agnostic. On the website it opens the user’s instance.

    • TWeaK
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      511 months ago

      You’re not done yet - you need to sign up on all the instances!! Then you’ll really not know what you’re doing!

  • @Syringe@lemmy.world
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    5411 months ago

    Man…

    I was pretty bummed when I heard that Twitter was going to die. There are some cool moments in history that happened on Twitter. It was a hell of a ride, but the writing was on the wall well before Elon bought it. It was time to go.

    But not like this.

    It deserved a good death. Not to have it’s corpse raped on full display over and over.

    A lot of very talented people committed so much time and energy to this. When it launched, it was a novel idea and they really forged some roads in our understanding of how we communicate and receive information.

    It was clear at the end that it would never produce the kind of ROI on advertising to make investors happy, and that Nazis had clearly taken over the platform and used it to bastardize journalism further. It was time to go to pasture.

    But not like this.

    Hopefully its mutilated, humiliated and desiccated corpse will feed the growth of the federated web.

    I hope you find peace, sweet prince.

    • TWeaK
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      3111 months ago

      Twitter was profitable before Musk took over.

      The purchase itself saddled Twitter with $13 billion in debt. Musk paid $26bn, other investors (including the Saudi prince) together paid $5bn, and the remaining $13bn was a loan Twitter took out to buy itself on their behalf.

      The new owners only paid tax on the $31bn they paid, not the $44bn that was paid to shareholders. (Here’s something I’m not sure about: Musk was one of the largest shareholders. Is the $44bn the total value of all shares - does that include Musk’s shares? Did he basically buy shares from himself?)

      The interest on that $13bn was comparible to Twitter’s revenue, before Musk started fucking around. Twitter could not afford that debt.

      The buyout itself was what killed Twitter. Everything since then has been nothing but a clown show to distract from the fact that was the original intention.

      • @Iteria@sh.itjust.works
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        2911 months ago

        Thank you. I hate it when people say Twitter wasn’t profitable. It was profitable. It just wasn’t an infinite money printing machine like people (investors) wanted. Twitter didn’t need investor money or loans to pay all its bills unlike say Tumblr.

        Twitter was the victim of the same financial BS as Toysrus.

        • @jackfrost@lemm.ee
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          211 months ago

          I’ve had the impression for a while that Twitter upper management wanted monthly active users on the level of Facebook, Tiktok and other social media. To enrich themselves by way of ad revenue, rather than to create opportunities and experiences for the platform and its users. Then when it became apparent that such a potential opportunity had come and gone (if it was ever there in the first place), they did what was in their minds the next-best thing: They cashed out while they could still find a buyer. Elon’s idiotically freewheeling but nevertheless binding offer was basically their winning lottery ticket, so they held his feet to the fire instead of treating it like the thoughtless shitpost it was.

      • @narnach@feddit.nl
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        411 months ago

        Wait, that sounds like a leveraged buyout. I overlooked that detail in the news. It changes everything.

        I know that some investment firms use leveraged buyouts to drain every bit of money from a company before they chop it up, sell the good bits and let the rest go bankrupt due to the massive debts left in the carcass of the old company. It’s so scummy I wonder why it’s not illegal.

      • @Syringe@lemmy.world
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        211 months ago

        I’m not saying it wasn’t profitable. It’s a hell of an achievement that it was.

        Just that they took on a lot of investment capital and it wasn’t the kind of return that investors were expecting.

        Ultimately, the efficacy of social media advertising on the whole is in the decline. The number and types of companies that used to advertise and run their business on Facebook is so different today than it was five years ago, and business are seeing far less return for their budget.

        Twitter was riding a knife’s edge (particularly during COVID) and would have to really scramble to stay in the red in the future.

  • @anteaters@feddit.de
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    1511 months ago

    Yeah why would they pay the “owner”? It’s their platform they do whatever they want. What a dumb thing to complain about.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        411 months ago

        Yeah they even offered him some bullshit as compensation that they were not required to. Don’t expect decency from a huge company like Twitter.

          • @anteaters@feddit.de
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            411 months ago

            Yeah we should totally expect decency from the social platform filled with Nazis that is run by a billionaire edgelord catering to them.

            • Flying Squid
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              1411 months ago

              We should expect decency from corporation in general and if we really had the balls, we’d all be out in the streets demanding it.

              • metaStatic
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                511 months ago

                remove limited liability and watch them suddenly grow a conscience

        • @Q63x@lemmy.world
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          311 months ago

          I like how we all like to pretend that these companies are not run by people. Company is not being an asshole people who were in charge of this transition were.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        1511 months ago

        Contrary to Twitter banking is regulated and governed by actual laws. It’s a completely different beast. Go ahead and google who the owner of the money in your account is and how that is regulated.

      • @apollo440@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Not defending the Musk here, but literally it’s not your money anymore as soon as you put it in a bank account.

        The money you put in your account belongs to the bank, and the account functions as an I.O.U… A very privileged one compared to other debts, and in most cases redeemable without notice, but you’re in fact just another creditor.

    • hoodatninja
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      It’s their platform they do whatever they want.

      Yes.

      What a dumb thing to complain about.

      I mean if I had a social media account just taken from me without warning or recourse I’d at the very least be irritated. How about you give me your account password and just let me take over? You can just go make a new one.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        311 months ago

        The “dumb thing” to complain about is that they did not pay him any money. It’s a dick move that they took it but I don’t get why anyone would think they would buy it off the “owner”. He was offered some gestures and apparently expected them to want or take it.

        • hoodatninja
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          1111 months ago

          The “dumb thing” to complain about is that they did not pay him any money.

          They’d pay a celebrity for it. Why should we be any different?

          It’s a dick move

          Yes that’s literally what everyone is saying. We aren’t asserting “rights” on twitter or something.

          • @anteaters@feddit.de
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            211 months ago

            Because a celebrity has clout to make a big stink of it. The headline isn’t only “Mean twitter took account from user!” but contains “He got zero dollars for it.” as if he was entitled to that in any way.

            Yes that’s literally what everyone is saying. We aren’t asserting “rights” on twitter or something.

            I believe that too, but look at the replies - there are people who literally believe they own their account or compare it to personal property or their bank accounts.

            • hoodatninja
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              We must be in different threads because I’m not seeing that. Unless you want to stretch that one comment about identity theft or the one about banking a fair bit.

              • @anteaters@feddit.de
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                111 months ago

                Then you might actually be in a different thread. One guy believes this is the same as the bank taking their money and never returning it and another one believes this is like taking people’s belongings because they enter your property.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        111 months ago

        Interpreting this as me approving of Musk’s action is just even more retarded than buying Twitter and renaming it to X.

        • @over_clox@lemmy.world
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          Interpreting your words just shows how much you don’t give a shit that someone lost their username because some dumb rich prick likes the letter X.

          You’d be whistling a different tune if it was your username.

          • @anteaters@feddit.de
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            111 months ago

            Yeah you are reading into my post whatever you want to read. I was always talking about them complaining “He got zero dollards for it.” as if he was in any way entitled to that. I’m sure it sucks for the user that Twitter just took the account but I really don’t give a crap about the Twitter shitshow.

            • @over_clox@lemmy.world
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              211 months ago

              Hey, I’m with ya there, to hell with Twitter, but still, people literally make, build up and sell user accounts every day. Elon is one of the richest dudes in the world, the least he could have done was compensated the original account owner.

            • VenoraTheBarbarian
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              111 months ago

              I do not get how you’re so confused.

              It’s not that he was “entitled” to money, it’s that money would have made taking his handle less of a dick move. Elon is a multi billionaire, he could have thrown a tens of thousands of dollars at this dude and had a good PR situation for his generosity, and not even noticed the dip in his bank account. Instead the story is that he’s an asshole who treats his users like shit if they have something he wants.

              So here we are, calling him an asshole. How is that confusing?

              • @anteaters@feddit.de
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                111 months ago

                I’m not confused and I agree that he’s an asshole. I still think its dumb to expect to get paid by Twitter when they take over your handle. Musk is not about good PR or good will, Hwang is lucky he wasn’t called a pedo by Musk - yet. And there are indeed people here who believe they are entitled to compensation and think they own their stupid Twitter name. How is that confusing?

    • @howrar@lemmy.ca
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      1311 months ago

      No one is owed anything, but not compensating the original owner further erodes what little trust was left in the company. You wouldn’t want to spend resources building a brand on a platform where your name can suddenly get snatched away at some billionaire’s whim.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        211 months ago

        Absolutely true. But apparently the headlines for this event are all “he got no money for it!”

        • @MsPenguinette@lemmy.world
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          311 months ago

          Up until it was taken from him, he would have been able to sell it for a shit tonne of money. I think it’s easy to understand why it was shitty of Twitter yo just snatch it

    • pjhenry1216
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      1111 months ago

      Because there’s precedent that handles have value (on the order of thousands of USD). They’re taking value from a customer. It’d be interesting to see what swag they offered in exchange, but considering the guy’s net worth, he could have afforded some decency. I mean, Gmail can just take your email address to, but it is how many identify themselves in business, so it can harm them financially. Sure, that’s the risk with doing that, but it is what it is. Musk could have generated some good will but instead generated more bad publicity. I’m beginning to think he has no PR on staff or just surrounds himself with people who never say no.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        111 months ago

        Is there a precedent for Twitter buying an account “back” from a user? IIRC all deals regarding Twitter accounts have been made between users.

        • pjhenry1216
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          611 months ago

          The precedent is that the handle has value. It’s a bad look when a company destroys value for a user, regardless of whether they have the right to or not. The internet is full of people complaining when Google shuts down a YouTube channel. It’s essentially the same thing. You expect a good reason or exchange to occur to make the customer whole.

          I don’t understand where your confusion lies. The guy got screwed over for being a loyal user of the service, despite Musk not owning it for that whole duration.

          The guy was offered swag, but I couldn’t find details of what it was. And as far as I can tell, this isn’t really decrying the lack of money. Just how they handled the situation as a whole.

          You understand how it’s an asshole move, but don’t understand why someone would expect some compensation for the dick move? When someone gives their spouse some roses because they acted like an ass, are you confused by the roses?

    • Little1Lost
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      1011 months ago

      the main problem with this is that with them doing it without asking or time to prepare all the people the guy knew where lost or have a problem finding him.
      And the huy was seemingly not even a nobody but instead had a company so even more company contacts could get lost or customers wanting to directly reach out to him could sent private data to a 3 party (twitter) about confidential informations.

      Secondly it says that the company can and will take over accounts when they have some reason, even if it is only the name.
      That means the trust in the handle gets completly broken because it could be a twitter account in just a few seconds without warning.
      So they have the power to take over an official governement or news account without warning and only leaving a reason. This is theoretical but if there is a news station with a handle like “xnews” i can really expect that it gets taken over in some time in the future.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        211 months ago

        I agree with all of this. I just think it’s idiotic to complain that they didn’t pay him. Twitter handles are not “owned” by the user and the platform can and will do with them whatever they like at any time.

    • @demonsword@lemmy.world
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      711 months ago

      It’s their platform they do whatever they want

      Their platform only has value because people use it. Mistreat your users, they go elsewhere and suddenly your platform becomes worthless.

    • LinkOpensChest.wav
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      711 months ago

      TIL if anyone carries anything valuable onto my property, it entitles me to take it from them

      My property, my rules /s

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        TIL the original user of the “@x” account owned it and brought it to Twitter who then took it from him.

          • @anteaters@feddit.de
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            311 months ago

            You might be surprised to learn that you do in fact not “own” your Twitter handle and Twitter is not required to buy it off of you if they want it.

            • LinkOpensChest.wav
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              611 months ago

              Oh really? Wow, maybe if I licked more boots it would make me smarter enough to “understand” this

    • @papertowels
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      611 months ago

      They certainly can do whatever they want, but folks are still able to call musk out for being a bully.

      It’s the same reasoning behind folks confusing freedom of speech with freedom from consequences of their speech.

    • digdug
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      511 months ago

      Why do you assume that complaining is the same as saying Twitter isn’t allowed to do this? I can still think it’s shitty without thinking they aren’t allowed to do it.

      • @anteaters@feddit.de
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        111 months ago

        I think it’s dumb to go “He got zero dollars for it.” as it sounds like he was owed anything. I also feel that it creates confusion with people being paid for a TLD they owned (or “squatted” on) which is something very different from having a Twitter handle. But apparently that’s just me.

  • @badnew@lemmy.ml
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    611 months ago

    I swear to god fucking Elon Musk googled “cool website name generator” before changing it

    • exscape
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      1011 months ago

      Very interesting times 💰(Parody)
      Joined June 2023

      I don’t think that’s the original account.

    • Arnj
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      911 months ago

      I’m not sure what you are trying to do with this link, the two x accounts are not the same…

        • Arnj
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          1111 months ago

          I think we’re talking past each other, the x who lost his account (I think) is now x12345678998765 the post behind the link was made by the account x12345678908765 they are not the same account, so the link does neither disprove nor prove the article in the main post which makes the comment by sam just useless and deceiving