In a rare twist of events, social media giant Twitter has commandeered a Twitter username from its owner of twelve years. On Tuesday, June 28th, Twitter told its users that it had reclaimed the username @X from the individual who had owned it since 2007. This move from Twitter came as a surprise, considering the company generally does not interfere in assigning usernames.
@X was once owned by Jason Contreras, who was the very first to personalize the username as his own. Contreras had been using @X since 2007, which made it one of the oldest usernames on the entire website. But Twitter decided the name was more suited to be used in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Twitter.
The Twitter username @X was significant to Twitter as it was a seemingly nice but effective way to communicate the decade of growth the brand was embarking upon. A representative from Twitter said, “We wanted to reclaim the @X username from Contreras in order to use it more broadly as part of our 10th anniversary celebration. We hope [Contreras] understands our decision.”
In order to make up for taking away Contreras’ cherished username, Twitter assigned Contreras another username, @Jason_X. Since returning @X to Twitter, the company has urged Contreras to use the account he now owns – @Jason_X – to tweet about the biggest moments of the past ten years of Twitter, in order to “retweet ten years of history.”
Despite the surprise move from Twitter, Contreras accepted the company’s decision and is happily tweeting away under his new username, @Jason_X. Though he may have lost @X, he said he is “thankful” for the opportunity to be a part of “such a big moment in Twitter’s history.”
Twitter’s “redemption” of the username @X from Contreras is one of the first times the company has interfered in username-assigning, and it hopefully won’t be the last. Twitter has certainly proven that it is possible for the company to reclaim usernames – however the parameters of who and how Twitter decides to take usernames are largely unknown. But, as the platform continues to grow and evolve, it will be interesting to see how the company handles similar situations in the future.
