{"id":1165026,"date":"2023-07-26T12:53:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T16:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1165026"},"modified":"2023-07-26T12:53:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T16:53:41","slug":"twitter-commandeers-x-username-from-man-who-had-it-since-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1165026","title":{"rendered":"Twitter commandeers @X username from man who had it since 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/getty-twitter-x-800x497-1.jpg\" alt=\"Illustration includes an upside-down Twitter bird logo with an \" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/getty-twitter-x.jpg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"1552\" data-width=\"2500\">Enlarge<\/a> (credit: Getty Images | Chris Delmas)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Elon Musk&#8217;s decision to <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2023\/07\/musk-rushes-out-new-twitter-logo-its-just-an-x-that-someone-tweeted-at-him\/\">rebrand Twitter as &#8220;X&#8221;<\/a> wouldn&#8217;t be complete without a change to the company&#8217;s official Twitter account. The @X handle was already taken by a user who registered it over 16 years ago, but that wasn&#8217;t much of an obstacle\u2014Twitter simply took over the username and offered its longtime owner some merchandise but no monetary compensation.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco-based <a href=\"https:\/\/orangephotography.com\/aboutus\/team\/\">photographer Gene X Hwang<\/a> was <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230110190140\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/x\">@X on Twitter<\/a> from March 2007 until yesterday. &#8220;They just took it essentially\u2014kinda what I thought might happen,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/business\/2023\/07\/26\/x-twitter-handle-account-owner-not-paid-elon-musk-rebrand\/\">Hwang told The Telegraph<\/a>. &#8220;They did send an email saying it is the property of &#8216;x&#8217; essentially.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hwang confirmed to Ars today that &#8220;there was no financial compensation&#8221; offered to him. The company offered &#8220;to switch the @x account and its history\/followers etc to a new handle once I select one that is available,&#8221; Hwang told us. &#8220;They also offered some merch and to meet with the management team as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1956724#p3\">Read 10 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1956724&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1956724\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter commandeers @X username from man who had it since 2007<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chris Delmas) Elon Musk&#8217;s decision to rebrand Twitter as &#8220;X&#8221; wouldn&#8217;t be complete without a change to the company&#8217;s official Twitter account. The @X handle was already taken by a user who registered it over &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1165026\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1165027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1165026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1165026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1165027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1165026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1165026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1165026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}