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Brian Hoff's wife, Kathleen, had her Instagram username stolen. It's now owned by a Facebook employee(medium.com)

9 years ago from Jonathan Suh, Designer at Planning Center

  • Artem TitoulenkoArtem Titoulenko, 9 years ago

    Twitter has a similar policy, though it mentions about a year of inactivity before the account can be reaped. I think this is a fair and reasonable policy. If an account is inactive, it seems reasonable to expect it to be trashed or re-appropriated.

    1 point
    • Chad EngleChad Engle, 9 years ago (edited 9 years ago )

      Twitters' inactivity isn't just related to posting however. Has to do with logins / other things. I looked at a 4yr old defunct account and it was still "active" even though not to the outside world...

      1 point
    • Braden HammBraden Hamm, 9 years ago

      I wish that's how it worked. Someone was squatting on a Twitter username for a domain I own and they only tweeted once in 2009. Multiple attempts to get it, but to no avail.

      Just noticed a it's become active about a month ago :(

      2 points
      • Artem TitoulenkoArtem Titoulenko, 9 years ago

        The killer for squatted twitter handles is phone login. If those credentials are entered in the iOS settings, iOS will fetch new tokens on a regular basis, keeping the account "active". As an employee told me: "just because you cannot see activity, doesn't mean they're inactive to the system".

        0 points
    • Graham KinsingerGraham Kinsinger, 9 years ago

      Is it feasible to make individual requests for inactive usernames?

      0 points
      • Artem TitoulenkoArtem Titoulenko, 9 years ago

        There are a variety of ways for acquiring a handle, but the most reliable is knowing someone who works in support.

        0 points