Twitter
, a company in the midst of a total reorganization, may be considering selling usernames to boost revenue, a new report from The New York Times has revealed.
This measure comes after several attempts to get the company afloat by its owner, tycoon
Elon Musk
, who acquired it for
$44 billion last October.
The social network has continued to grab headlines since it was acquired by Musk: whether through mass layoffs, other spending cuts, or imposing undesirable working conditions on its workers,
the billionaire tried all kinds of tactics to revive the network. Social.
Or at least to make it financially viable.
After experiencing a sharp drop in ad revenue, Twitter tried to find new ways to generate revenue to continue riding the social media wave.
To do this, a renewed subscription plan was even created through which users pay to obtain verification credentials, a measure that quickly became a 'trending topic' around the world.
The subscription to Twitter Blue has a monthly cost of
7.99 dollars.
Likewise, with a view to continuing to grow exponentially, the company made it clear that it plans to lift the ban on political ads in the "coming weeks", so that the different political figures resume their promotions, as well as greater freedom of expression by unlocking accounts. characterized by their hate speech.
Even so, Musk went so far as
to suspend the accounts of several journalists
, an act that was widely criticized for which he later had to restore them.
A month ago, the Tesla owner claimed in a tweet that his social network would soon begin releasing 1.5 billion usernames, stressing that inactive accounts would be removed.
As he revealed after his purchase, the measure to release names would be intended for those accounts
with desired usernames.
Such unique usernames, also known as identifiers, can be beneficial as certain people or brands are willing to pay huge amounts of money
to get hold of them
.
In fact, there is currently a black market in which customers can buy certain abandoned usernames that contain a desired word or number.
Twitter rules forbid it
According to The New York Times, the company's workers have considered organizing and carrying out online auctions where people can bid on usernames, something that began to be discussed last December.
To date, it is not known if this measure will be implemented, or if it will affect all usernames or
only a
more relevant part of them.
Thanks to these auctions, people will be able to get the username they've always dreamed of, which is made up of the characters, words or numbers that follow the @ sign to identify Twitter accounts.
In the case of its owner, for example, its handle is
@elonmusk
.
This measure may once again raise controversy in the American company, since Twitter's rules prohibit the buying and selling of identifiers.
For this reason, hackers have already acted on several occasions: in 2020, a 17-year-old was arrested in Florida after hacking into Twitter to obtain usernames to sell later, endangering the accounts of public figures such as himself.
Musk, former president Barack Obama or Bill Gates.
This information follows the announcement of the popular messaging app Telegram, which made it clear in October that it will hold a username auction, both for individual accounts and channels, thanks to its own marketplace built
on the TON blockchain. .
With information from La Vanguardia
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