Twitter is looking to boost its revenue by selling usernames through online auctions, suggests a The New York Times report.
The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, has reportedly been searching for new ways to generate income to make platform profitable, and had publicly stated that Twitter will start freeing “name space” of 1.5 billion accounts, back in December.
“These are obvious account deletions with no tweets and no log in for years,” he wrote at the time.
These are obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
It’s worth noting that buying and selling desirable Twitter usernames goes against the company’s policies, but it remains prevalent on the ‘black market,’ according to TechCrunch. The practice of selling desirable usernames has also attracted hackers in the past, with a teenager being arrested in 2020 for hacking high-profile accounts, including that of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and more, to sell them.
Further, as reported by TechCrunch, the idea of selling usernames comes as popular messaging app Telegram announced in October that it would start auctioning both individual accounts and channels, through a ‘TON’ blockchain marketplace.
Elsewhere, Musk revealed plans for a Twitter UI overhaul earlier this week. Read more about it here.
Source: The New York Times, Via: TechCrunch
