“We have a marketplace which allows the sale of Twitter handles,” says Philly, a subversive marketer who founded ForumKorner, an online gaming forum. “Twitter has yet to go after the hackers or phishers, let alone the legitimate account sellers, like myself,” says Philly. I own both @jb on Twitter and Instagram and there’s a huge economy for desirable usernames right now. In the early days of the social media giant, this meant people could contact the administrator and request inactive handles. “Twitter has always been very clear that it’s against their terms and conditions to sell usernames but that hasn’t stopped people trying,” says Sue Llewellyn, who trains journalists to use social media.

Source: The Guardian April 17, 2018 06:00 UTC