Twitter reportedly considered auctioning off handles in a bit to make money.
Twitter reportedly considered selling handles to the highest bidder in an attempt to rake in some much-needed cash. The company continues to struggle following Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout in late 2022 and is looking for ways to raise money.
Musk’s Twitter has already fired half of the company’s staff while relaunching the Twitter Blue subscription with new features in an attempt to cajole people into parting with their money. But now a new report claims that Twitter has at least considered making previously free handles available for auction as another potential money-making scheme.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “Twitter employees have held conversations about selling some user names for the service since at least December.” It’s said that “engineers have discussed running online auctions where people can bid for the user names.”
It isn’t clear whether the discussions went anywhere, but Musk had previously said that he wanted Twitter to begin reclaiming as many as 1.5 billion handles from accounts that are no longer actively used. Some of those handles were likely claimed when Twitter first launched but never used, while others could be owned by people who have already left the platform. But some people have already raised concerns that unused accounts could belong to people who have died – and Twitter’s reclamation could mean families and friends losing access to those people’s tweets.
There’s little doubt that there is money to be made from handles, though. The WSJ notes that “in 2020, a 17-year-old in Florida was arrested after hacking Twitter to obtain user names to sell, compromising the accounts of Mr. Musk and celebrities.” However, selling handles is currently against Twitter’s policies. That could easily be changed, of course.
