Comment by nrmitchi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nrmitchi | Hacker News Reader

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And yet, that rule is stupid. But your logic instagram could just give @kyliejenner to some random person, and you think she would have no recourse? You think it would be acceptable for someone at instagram to do Kylie Jenner a personal favor and give her `@kylie`, and the person who currently has it should have no recourse? Kylie is just an example person with a larger following; I'm not implying that this happened, is happening, or she is in any way involved in this practice.

People like to make the claim that "a handle or username has no value" which is just insane. If it had no value, people wouldn't try to steal them.

If the first line of a bank ToS was "you can lose your account at any time for any reason", would you think that is acceptable? No, because money _obviously has value_. Usernames have value, and in some cases, usernames have more value than many people's bank accounts.

"you can lose your account at any time for any reason" is just an excuse to avoid any concept of _public_ user support.

> And yet, that rule is stupid.

Doesn't matter. They can still do it to anyone anyway.

> But your logic instagram could just give @kyliejenner to some random person, and you think she would have no recourse?

Well yes. They (Facebook) own the platform, it's a privately owned company and they can do whatever they like either via the ToS or in general. You don't own your account handle. They reserve the right to terminate your account or disable the handle at any time.

> Well yes.

Strong disagree. If Facebook tried this against anyone with a moderate following there would be a Tortious interference and/or fraud lawsuit filed _immediately_.

When Trump's twitter account was deleted by a rogue employee for all of 10 minutes, Twitter most definitely did not just sit back and say "We reserve the right to terminate your account at any time".

> it's a privately owned company

I know this is going to sound pedantic, but this is wrong. Facebook is a publicly-owned company.

>I know this is going to sound pedantic, but this is wrong. Facebook is a publicly-owned company.

No the original statement was correct, your statement is wrong. If you want to really be pedantic then Facebook is a public company that is privately owned.

A publicly owned company [0] is one that is owned by a government. A public company [1] is one whose shares are traded on a public stock exchange.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_ownership

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company

Most people don't have any influence. And that rules don't apply (or at least apply just selectively) to powerful people is no surprise either.

What is the purpose of this comment? It has the appearance of being a defense of an unjust status quo. Is that your intent? Or do you think a "reminder" of the existence and consequences of unjust power structures serves some other, useful purpose? It doesn't, but I'm interested to know your rationale.

I'm just saying that platform's behavior to top users, doesn't say much about what they can or can't do (or are doing) under their ToS to normal people.

Do you think this isn't obvious? Why do you take the time to point it out?

The purpose of the comment seems fairly straightforward and highlights exactly what was originally claimed, that the section of the ToS that claims Instagram can close any account for any reason is only true for people who have no influence or notoriety. It is not true of public and/or influential figures who could have a strong claim against Instagram for arbitrarily deciding to close their account.

That one set of rules apply to people in power and another set of rules apply to the general population is certainly something to take into account.

Do you think that this comment provides new information to literally anybody who is reading it? Given the answer is obviously "no", what do you think the actual effect is? Do you understand that it reads as a defense of the status quo?

It's not my logic. It's in the ToS. They can terminate that account. And what can they do afterwards is unspecified, so presumably they can do anything, except for sharing private data from that account with someone else.

Banks' baseline behavior is ruled by law and national banking regulations, not just some ToS. That's probably why paypal and similar are in no rush to become real banking institutions.

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