Back in May, the iOS app "Muse" rebranded as "Allume". Their explanation was "An unexpected opportunity came up regarding the Muse name and trademarks, and as a result I'll soon be changing the name of Muse to Allumé."
> You can’t sell, license, or purchase any account or data obtained from us or our Service, regardless of whether such data was obtained while logged-in to an Instagram account.
> This includes attempts to buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username); solicit, collect, or use login credentials or badges of other users; or request or collect Instagram usernames, passwords, or misappropriate access tokens.
Don't be so generous in your assumptions. Meta simply stole the username because they could, and gave the old owner nothing in return. Or if they were lucky, maybe the band got a few Meta branded t-shirts, as was the case for one of the other victims from the article.
Seriously, look at that list of all the times Meta stole people's handles. Why would this time be any different?
If it happened across multiple platforms (of different owners) and the band themselves are not complaining, months after the rename, it seems quite likely.
Note that if this was done against the band's will it would be fantastic publicity for them to say so. Everyone would be on their side.
Meta probably reached out to them to remove any uncertainty around sharing the Muse trademark, and this was included in the deal. The band themselves didn't lose any followers, it was a rename. They might have asked for a clause not to talk about the deal.
I think GP is (correctly) claiming that you don't actually own your account handle on social media services, including X. But I don't think it was a particularly relevant response at that point in the comment thread, and I agree Meta likely bought the usernames from the band on the various platforms.
Since when was the default to assume malicious activity and victimization, and then to ask for proof otherwise? Obviously we should do the reverse. There should be evidence of theft rather than assuming theft as the baseline.
For starters, if the band's handles were taken non-consensually, then the least we should expect is a public complaint from said band.
This is doubly true in a world where social media handles are routinely bought, sold, and traded. And triply true where the supposed victim of this crime is an incredibly popular group of people with an extremely massive platform, and it's 99.9999% likely that Meta knew this going in.
When a company is known for being malicious by default, to the point of knowingly covering up their ongoing and extensive contributions to teen suicides, it is not unreasonable for people to expect they would steal social media accounts to suit their interests.
They are pure unadulterated evil. They are guilty until proven innocent at this point.
I am agreeing it is unlikely it was actually malicious, but it is Meta and they deserve no charity. If it is even a small possibility they did the evil thing, we should all operate on the assumption they did the evil thing anyway until proven innocent.
I hope all the non charitable assumptions they deserve snowball enough to hurt them.
It became the default due to how Facebook behaves. If facebook employees even occasionally acted like human beings with an ounce of decency, it might be worth not assuming they're evil sacks of shit.
> An opportunity came up regarding the Muse name and trademarks. These have now been sold, so I need to move the app to a new name. Nothing else about the company, the app, your account, or your data has changed.
> Nobody using Muse the tool knows or gives a fuck who Muse the band is, the band itself is twice their age.
Muse is incredibly popular. They're in the middle of a tour right now, too. Just saw them live two weekends ago. I'm sure there are tons of people who both listen to Muse and will use Muse the AI tool. I'm sure that's true for many of the AI tool's creators, too.
The irony of a highly talented band that have been actually doing the work for over twenty years being pushed aside to make room for Meta's model that promises you won't have to actually do the work.
No, there's no evidence either way. Both are equally possible.
The odds of X forcefully handing a handle over from a user to Meta for an AI product seem lower to me than them being paid for it, but that's not based on anything either.
Using "lost" in a headline is therefore misleading, as it implies a lack of consent where there is no actual knowledge that is the case.
I don't think so, because if it was involuntary from Muse the band, surely they would post something about it. They would get a ton of publicity and goodwill for shit talking Meta, and the fact that they aren't makes it much more likely that they were paid for it.
You're right, I was thinking in my head "equally possible based on the information presented" but didn't write it out. Were I a betting man, I'd put money on them being paid to transfer the name rather than X screwing over a well known band for the benefit of their own competition, Meta.
Not disclosing how much they were paid... I see that as incredibly dishonest and scummy. Sure "an opportunity regarding the trademark" yadda yadda... empty lawyerspeak that turns me right away.
Heard of POSSE? They could post on their websites and syndicate elsewhere. That way, I can access their content thru their website or RSS since I don’t have an Instagram.
LLMs are equalizing this. They use curl and Instagram has dark patterns to stop this. So if you ask a question in a specific niche, LLMs will prefer and refer to users who have their own website.
It’s the same reason popular YouTubers move to Patreon and Nebula once they get established. You never want to solely depend on a platform that can demonetize, or in this situation, take your handle.
Muse might’ve just sold it to them, TBH. I don’t see FB stripping them of it outright. This is not a small band afterall.
I'm old enough to remember when bands did everything on their own sites, complete with message boards. I _really_ miss that. Twitter is just a middle-man nobody wants when you're talking about artists.
I get what you're saying, but the vast majority of people aren't going to bother going to someone's random website. I think the best you can do in this day and age is put your eggs into as many different baskets as possible, a personal website being included in that. That way, you can maximize eyes on your work and one platform suddenly losing popularity or going to crap doesn't ruin you.
I and others I know would. Granted we're not the vast majority, but my feeling is that people don't do it nowadays because they've been trained not to. If bands went back to their own sites, I'd say people would follow.
Interoperability that POSSE and ATPROTO provide will free us from the network effect. You know what saves us from the network effect? Interoperability.
It really isn’t. No one is going to some randos website. Notice how this conversation is here instead of on Engadget itself, comments powered by openweb
Last I checked usernames aren't a public good. You're part of a social network and they get to set the policy.
Sure, you can claim it was a dick move, and maybe it is (although why is a handle so valuable? "muse instagram" now links to the @museband and their followers were transferred). This is just some phony outrage.
It's also ironic that the overlap of people that find this offensive but were fine with social media censorship since "it's a private company" is > 0%
> Last I checked usernames aren't a public good. You're part of a social network and they get to set the policy.
I'd count this as "strong-armed into this".
The giants want all the benefits of being public spaces with none of the responsibilities. To use their (US) constitutional right to free speech to sell any ad they want, while using their power (as a private corporation) to ban (or algorithmically censor) unwanted speech. To decide what counts as a "legitimate" name. And if they can manage it, to be so important its use is defacto mandatory, without democratic oversight.
>To use their (US) constitutional right to free speech to sell any ad they want
First I've heard of this, in what case was free speech used to justify a right to show a specific ad?
>while using their power (as a private corporation) to ban (or algorithmically censor) unwanted speech
It's actually the opposite, they justify being a public forum for free spech in order NOT to be liable for vetting and publishing the content, they want to be considered a neutral intermediary, not a publisher liable in any way for whatever is published.
> First I've heard of this, in what case was free speech used to justify a right to show a specific ad?
All of them? This is pretty much the default case. If Meta or Google or whoever say "we don't want to show this ad", they're allowed to, it's fine, they're not a public (/government) space who has to follow the 1st's requirement to not-censor.
My point is Meta and Google (I assume others but they're the big ones), want to be treated as an entity with first amendment rights, rather than one with first amendment responsibilities, even though they're also trying to position themselves as mandatory or the only space (that matters).
> It's actually the opposite, they justify being a public forum for free spech in order NOT to be liable for vetting and publishing the content, they want to be considered a neutral intermediary, not a publisher liable in any way for whatever is published.
Sounds like you're talking about section 230; I read there's a lot of misinformation about that. Apparently what it really does is protect (at least some subset of) "good faith" filtering like spam filters. However, what a lot of people today object to is under the (painfully vague to all us software nerds) title of "the algorithm", which is basically editorialising for maximum user engagement/addiction.
Anywho, here's a quick search result of one example where they were found to be "that's fine" for terminating ad campaigns:
It's just non-responsive to the parent comment. Lay people would consider that "stolen," whether the original account holder possessed a legal right to the name or not. GP even quoted it like that to show they were not talking about the legal concept of ownership.
I would focus less on "it's not technically a crime so the quotes should be there" part, and more on how "["stolen"] is more accurate than [reallocated] because it's a dick-move of betrayal against users and a worrying violation of norms".
Kind of like if the Example Community is in an uproar because Alice took a baseball-bat an "murdered" her neighbor Bob's dog. Carol's "helpful" note that it isn't homicide may not be received the way she expects.
Because if my option is to own my own land but not be able to actually make a living off of it or work someone else's land but live, I know which I'm picking.
Like it or lump it. People use these sites to sell their things because that's where everyone is. You can scream into a void or you can go about making it.
I guess the question is, how much are your principles worth on this issue?
The exact circumstances are that they likely paid them a shitload of money.
reply