Royal Websites & Social Networking

[jacqui24]

What I'm saying is that it doesn't reach the level of human decency issue. And something he agreed to no less in the user agreement with Instagram.

While Instagram is not going to step in for everyone in such cases just because people want a certain username. They simply don't have the man power to be everyone's mommy and daddy and deal with the "but I wanna it!". OTOH, they will for official accounts where there are legitimate reasons to why having that handle is important and offers some form of order when people search for accounts. It does also stop certain situations where it's almost extortion. Don't like the policy? As with any services and products offered by a business, you don't have to use it. It's always mind boggling when people become more enraged than the "victim" in trivial things like a social media handle. Makes one wonder what the true issue is.

[Fijiro]

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

So what you’re saying is.. if you’re famous enough you can abandon basic decency to other people?
The username was already in use (sparingly or everyday, makes no difference- it was taken!)
common courtesy and decent human behavior says you at least contact the person before poaching. Obviously Harry Meghan, their social media person knew the username was taken.. they could have contacted the man and at least asked him if he’ll be willing to give it up. If not...

Well, this is from Instagram help center- seems pretty straight forward to me.
So mr. Jo and me. Jane are asked to play around with their username, so can Harry and Meghan.

“What can I do if an Instagram username is already claimed but seems inactive?

If a username you want is being used by an account that seems inactive, you can choose an available version of the username. You can add periods, numbers, underscores or abbreviations to help you come up with a username that's not already in use.“
https://help.instagram.com/513717858639392

Kevin still has both his twitter handles sussexroyal and sussexroyal2. From the bio page it shows sussexroyal2 was created 2014. so that negates the notion that he was forced to move to sussexroyal2.

Harry and Meghan did not take Kevin's twitter handles.

Harry and Meghan are not on twitter.

.

[evolvingdoors]

Originally Posted by Fijiro

Kevin still has both his twitter handles sussexroyal and sussexroyal2. From the bio page it shows sussexroyal2 was created 2014. so that negates the notion that he was forced to move to sussexroyal2.

Harry and Meghan did not take Kevin's twitter handles.

Harry and Meghan are not on twitter.

.

Except we’re talking about the instagram account not twitter. And they may have nearly did, according to an article the twitter account was disabled for a few hours (or a day can’t remember from the article) shortly after the Instagram account went live, and then went back on. Looks like by the twitter account the guy is actually a little bit miffed he was not at least contacted. He said he would have happily given it to them, all they needed so was ask!!

As for the second twitter account: maybe he forgot the password for the first account for awhile? Or had issues logging in and created a second one? I had an elderly client once with a similar issue, she had a phone problem lost the info to her Facebook (I think it was Facebook) account, she created a new one, a few weeks later her grandson came to visit and fixed it for her.

My point is, even by IG user agreement.. there was no real appropriate or necessary reason to take away this man username, without at the very least contacting him. They were taking it and giving it away to someone who was likely to garner publicity on that username so there was no way the guy would not have found out eventually. (Even if he doesn’t use his Instagram account daily.

https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511

“Additional Rights We Retain

If you select a username or similar identifier for your account, we may change it if we believe it is appropriate or necessary (for example, if it infringes someone's intellectual property or impersonates another user).”



Harry and Meghan could have used something like “Sussex_Royal” or “DuchySessex” “HRHSessex”... seriously so many other options!!

I’m just saying, whatever IG agreement is, Harry and Meghan office should have contacted the guy themselves and asked him if he’d be willing to give it up, if he had refused they could have chosen another name. People do it everyday!!

[jacqui24]

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

My point is, even by IG user agreement.. there was no real appropriate or necessary reason to take away this man username, without at the very least contacting him. They were taking it and giving it away to someone who was likely to garner publicity on that username so there was no way the guy would not have found out eventually. (Even if he doesn’t use his Instagram account daily.

https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511

“Additional Rights We Retain

If you select a username or similar identifier for your account, we may change it if we believe it is appropriate or necessary (for example, if it infringes someone's intellectual property or impersonates another user).”



Harry and Meghan could have used something like “Sussex_Royal” or “DuchySessex” “HRHSessex”... seriously so many other options!!

I’m just saying, whatever IG agreement is, Harry and Meghan office should have contacted the guy themselves and asked him if he’d be willing to give it up, if he had refused they could have chosen another name. People do it everyday!!

Except, most users don't hit 3.5 million users in 48 hours. And of everything you came up with, SussexRoyal is the easiest and logical username for them. While people follow them closely would know the exact handle, that's not the case for millions that just follow here and there, but would like to get updates from them. Fact of matter is, most official accounts don't use underscores and such. At some point, there are going to be hitting up Kevin accidentally.

And honestly, you might think it's best to contact them in person ahead of time, but it's not always the case. You don't know how people would've reacted if they knew someone of this profile want their username. People do hold things like this as hostage. It's best to let a third party intermediary handle this. They went through official channels and handle it accordingly to the agreements by all parties.

[Fijiro]

Kevin is on twitter, not instagram.

[evolvingdoors]

Originally Posted by jacqui24

What I'm saying is that it doesn't reach the level of human decency issue. And something he agreed to no less in the user agreement with Instagram.

While Instagram is not going to step in for everyone in such cases just because people want a certain username. They simply don't have the man power to be everyone's mommy and daddy and deal with the "but I wanna it!". OTOH, they will for official accounts where there are legitimate reasons to why having that handle is important and offers some form of order when people search for accounts. It does also stop certain situations where it's almost extortion. Don't like the policy? As with any services and products offered by a business, you don't have to use it. It's always mind boggling when people become more enraged than the "victim" in trivial things like a social media handle. Makes one wonder what the true issue is.

Sorry for two posts in a row.

I think it actually does. The name was being used. Where I come from it is common decency to ask to use something someone else is currently using.
Yesterday there was a half bar of chocolate sitting on the corner of my manager desk, I waited a about 20 minutes to see if anyone was eating from it before I asked her if I may have a piece (i’m literally addicted to chocolate!). She said I can have it all (I was the happiest chocoholic). My point is: it wasn’t mine, I asked (nothing wrong with asking), she could have refused I would have understood as it was her chocolate.

Same with the username, it was his account, active or not, they should have made contact, explained the situation and would have gotten their answer.

I’m just saying, put yourself in this man shoes. He may not be overly upset, but he obviously was upset enough to comment about this to the BBC, and on his account. In fact there are journalists contacting him.. so this is a big deal.

At the end of the day, everything about the royals behavior (from pictures they post, to what they say) is about optics.
You may disagree and think it’s too harsh for this situation, but this move can easily be read as: another abuse by the royals of their privileges and power against the small man. And that is in fact some of sentiment I have already seen around the net about this.
It may be harsh, but as we said before: Everything is about optics when it comes to the royals.

[Fijiro]

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

Sorry for two posts in a row.

I think it actually does. The name was being used. Where I come from it is common decency to ask to use something someone else is currently using.
Yesterday there was a half bar of chocolate sitting on the corner of my manager desk, I waited a about 20 minutes to see if anyone was eating from it before I asked her if I may have a piece (i’m literally addicted to chocolate!). She said I can have it all (I was the happiest chocoholic). My point is: it wasn’t mine, I asked (nothing wrong with asking), she could have refused I would have understood as it was her chocolate.

Same with the username, it was his account, active or not, they should have made contact, explained the situation and would have gotten their answer.

I’m just saying, put yourself in this man shoes. He may not be overly upset, but he obviously was upset enough to comment about this to the BBC, and on his account. In fact there are journalists contacting him.. so this is a big deal.

At the end of the day, everything about the royals behavior (from pictures they post, to what they say) is about optics.
You may disagree and think it’s too harsh for this situation, but this move can easily be read as: another abuse by the royals of their privileges and power against the small man. And that is in fact some of sentiment I have already seen around the net about this.
It may be harsh, but as we said before: Everything is about optics when it comes to the royals.

Kevin still owns both his sussexroyal and sussexroyal2 twitter handles, he was never on sussexroyal instagram.

.

[jacqui24]

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

Sorry for two posts in a row.

I think it actually does. The name was being used. Where I come from it is common decency to ask to use something someone else is currently using.
Yesterday there was a half bar of chocolate sitting on the corner of my manager desk, I waited a about 20 minutes to see if anyone was eating from it before I asked her if I may have a piece (i’m literally addicted to chocolate!). She said I can have it all (I was the happiest chocoholic). My point is: it wasn’t mine, I asked (nothing wrong with asking), she could have refused I would have understood as it was her chocolate.

Same with the username, it was his account, active or not, they should have made contact, explained the situation and would have gotten their answer.

I’m just saying, put yourself in this man shoes. He may not be overly upset, but he obviously was upset enough to comment about this to the BBC, and on his account. In fact there are journalists contacting him.. so this is a big deal.

At the end of the day, everything about the royals behavior (from pictures they post, to what they say) is about optics.
You may disagree and think it’s too harsh for this situation, but this move can easily be read as: another abuse by the royals of their privileges and power against the small man. And that is in fact some of sentiment I have already seen around the net about this.
It may be harsh, but as we said before: Everything is about optics when it comes to the royals.

Except, he doesn't own that social media handle. The example you used has an ownership issue.

Bottom line is, Instagram has put into the agreement that they can do this, and he agreed to it. So I'm not understanding why it's so against human decency? And really, all this over a social media handle. Media contacted him and he spoke because he's having his fun with his 15 minutes of fame. He hasn't used the Sussexroyal twitter account since 2014, and now all of sudden he's using it again. Why? Because he seems to be enjoying this a little. And really, good for him. There is a reason why sometimes people advise against direct contact in certain situations, and let third party, like attorneys, handle it. It might be nothing, but you just don't know. Handle it by the book. And really, just because journalists are contacting him does NOT mean it's a big deal. Especially given some of the stuff that's been published in royal world.

And really, if we want to talk about ethical issues on this type of thing, we could go all day. Especially considering the situations where people demand unreasonable amount of money for a social media handle just because they think the other party can afford it when it would have no value if that counterparty isn't interest. Bottom line is, he had an agreement with Instagram. And Instagram does see the benefit of giving priority to official accounts certain handles. Don't like it? Feel free to walk away.

[evolvingdoors]

Originally Posted by jacqui24

Except, most users don't hit 3.5 million users in 48 hours. And of everything you came up with, SussexRoyal is the easiest and logical username for them. While people follow them closely would know the exact handle, that's not the case for millions that just follow here and there, but would like to get updates from them. Fact of matter is, most official accounts don't use underscores and such. At some point, there are going to be hitting up Kevin accidentally.

And honestly, you might think it's best to contact them in person ahead of time, but it's not always the case. You don't know how people would've reacted if they knew someone of this profile want their username. People do hold things like this as hostage. It's best to let a third party intermediary handle this. They went through official channels and handle it accordingly to the agreements by all parties.

Those are three names I came with on a moment brain storming (by the way I did not went to check if those names were taken already or not- they are mere suggestions- and to be honest I actually think HRHSussex is an even better username than Sussexroyal). i’m sure Harry and Meghan office could have come up with more options. And I would find it inefficient if they did not have a list of names they thought could be used instead, if he had refused.

Again: basic human decency - you ask before you take!.
Actually I will let Kevin talk himself, because he himself used said it:

Hello Harry and Meghan. If you do want my Twitter account as well can you at least have the decency to speak to me?"
(Quoted from the bbc article)

In this ITV article he says he would have happily given the name, all they had to do was email him and explain the situation(I can’t seem to quote from the article)
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-04/...-kevin-keiley/

So yes I think it would have been the more royal (if you like) behavior to try and contact Kevin and just lay it out and let him make his decision.
And if he were to hold it hostage? (Despite the above claim) there are so many other names they could have chosen from! Even without an underline. Why not contact and use a username from one of their fans account? That person would have happily given away the username!


And obviously the third party handling it did not handle this in an appropriate manner!.

And why I am annoyed? Because this means it can happen to any of us, honestly? I never imagined this is something social media companies can do to reasonable non hateful accounts without at least trying to contact the username owner first. I can understand account names that are problematic and which contain hate and vitriol and the like, but not from a regular everyday Jo man account.
What would you do if you woke up tomorrow morning to find out your Royalforums username was given away because someone with power wanted it?
You’d be annoyed. You know you will.

Originally Posted by Fijiro

Kevin is on twitter, not instagram.

He does have an Instagram account (per his words it was mainly used to like things so the account was somewhat active, the original username was “sussexroyal” and it was changed without notifying him. It’s literally in the BBC and ITV articles, IG themselves have commented that this happened without notifying him.

Kevin, who lives in Worthing, says the first he knew that his name had been given away was when he got a text.
"I got a jokey text from my son which said 'Ha ha, I see your handle has gone then'," the 55-year-old tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.
"I thought 'What's that all about?' He said 'Look on Instagram' so I looked on Instagram and suddenly my handle wasn't @sussexroyal anymore it was @_sussexroyal_
"It had been taken."

[jacqui24]

Just because people say something doesn't mean that's what would've or will happen. Otherwise, why do we need written contracts? Bottom line is that sometimes you can't make everyone happy. If you went by the book, it is what it is.

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

And obviously the third party handling it did not handle this in an appropriate manner!.

And why I am annoyed? Because this means it can happen to any of us, honestly? I never imagined this is something social media companies can do to reasonable non hateful accounts without at least trying to contact the username owner first. I can understand account names that are problematic and which contain hate and vitriol and the like, but not from a regular everyday Jo man account.
What would you do if you woke up tomorrow morning to find out your Royalforums username was given away because someone with power wanted it?
You’d be annoyed. You know you will.

Why would I be annoyed at something I agreed to? Or why would you be annoyed at something you agreed to? The fact that he went back on something he already agreed to is evidence that there is a chance he wouldn't have been as accommodating as he claims. Bottom line is, we all clicked on agree button on Instagram.

I find it odd that you are going on and on about the morality here, yet you'd have no issue and thinks he has a right to hold something hostage even if he agreed not to.

[evolvingdoors]

Originally Posted by jacqui24

Except, he doesn't own that social media handle. The example you used has an ownership issue.

Bottom line is, Instagram has put into the agreement that they can do this, and he agreed to it. So I'm not understanding why it's so against human decency? And really, all this over a social media handle. Media contacted him and he spoke because he's having his fun with his 15 minutes of fame. He hasn't used the Sussexroyal twitter account since 2014, and now all of sudden he's using it again. Why? Because he seems to be enjoying this a little. And really, good for him. There is a reason why sometimes people advise against direct contact in certain situations, and let third party, like attorneys, handle it. It might be nothing, but you just don't know. Handle it by the book. And really, just because journalists are contacting him does NOT mean it's a big deal. Especially given some of the stuff that's been published in royal world.

And really, if we want to talk about ethical issues on this type of thing, we could go all day. Especially considering the situations where people demand unreasonable amount of money for a social media handle just because they think the other party can afford it when it would have no value if that counterparty isn't interest. Bottom line is, he had an agreement with Instagram. And Instagram does see the benefit of giving priority to official accounts certain handles. Don't like it? Feel free to walk away.

if you go into the “tweets and replies” section you can see he used the twitter account to post a reply in July 2018. So obviously the twitter account has been active. And I assume so did the IG in the same manner.

So if the royals use lawyers, why didn’t the lawyers send an email?


It is a sort of ownership may not be a physical one but certainly an emotional one (I’m gonna admit I have an IG account, which is dormant right now, for my previous career, it took me days to choose the name, I have been unable to delete the account partially because of tang reason).
Honestly, considering which family these two belong to, it’s actually the most logical move!, have the lawyers contact him. This may not be a major optics issue like her sister or the 500k on clothes or the people article followed by the baby shower and social media posting about it by her friends... but when it comes on the heels of all of those . Seriously? I’d imagine they’d want to avoid ANYthing that can create bad optics, even the smallest one.

Like Kevin himself said: could have just emailed me and requested the name.

And yes he may also having a bit of fun, but he did say clearly he was a bit announced he was not contacted and asked. So I think he is annoyed (likely more at IG) which is why he is doing his best to make sure his twitter account name won’t be taken from him too.

This entire thing imo is poor planning on behalf of whomever handled this at Harry and Meghan office, and show a lack of logical thinking and maybe poor organizational skills and decision making skills. Jmho.

[jacqui24]

This is all too dramatic for me over a social media handle.

If you are so attached to it and it hurts you? Don't agree to give it away in the terms. It's quite easy. It's not as if they deleted anything. He still has whatever he put on there. It's in a handle that's close to what he created, but clearly in a form that is a lot less official.

So if the royals use lawyers, why didn’t the lawyers send an email?

When I used lawyers as an example, it's more as in general terms. But why would lawyers send an email? He doesn't own it. They obviously worked with IG on this. No one knows if they used lawyers or not on this, but they would've been advised on the terms and how to properly proceed. It's enough of intermediary. You don't go and muddy the water. It can create a bigger problem than originally is.

[jacqui24]

Oh a much lighter note. Reading FC decided to have a little fun with this today.

https://twitter.com/ReadingFC/status...19915960631298

[soapstar]

Another article about the account change.

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-47813521

At the end of the day it's not a big deal, but I do understand why the original holder of the name was a little annoyed that the handle was taken from him. Especially since the account wasn't dormant and he was using it to like posts and follow other accounts. Instagram should have at least contacted him and let him know they were changing the name.

[andi]

Instagram & Twitter are two separate social media companies. The individual companies have no say in what usernames are allowed on any other company. In most cases, when famous people (and regular people too) create social media accounts, they usually choose a name that is available on all platforms but sometimes that is not the case. Also, neither Twitter, and most certainly not Instagram, can make changes to the twitter handle of an individual account without user consent. So nobody has been making changes to the account besides the user himself. Instagram has no obligation whatsoever to contact users from Twitter to tell them someone is using their same username. That person is clearly looking for attention.

[soapstar]

Originally Posted by andi

Instagram has no obligation whatsoever to contact users from Twitter to tell them someone is using their same username.

Correct. But this isn't about his Twitter account. The name change was for his Instagram account.

[Rena M.]

Originally Posted by evolvingdoors

Same with the username, it was his account, active or not, they should have made contact, explained the situation and would have gotten their answer.

I’m just saying, put yourself in this man shoes. He may not be overly upset, but he obviously was upset enough to comment about this to the BBC, and on his account

I lost my inactive facebook accounts twice and I survived This whole story is ridiculous

[Rudolph]

This backlash was building

"JAN MOIR: If social media is really as addictive for kids as drugs, Prince Harry, why not tell that to your 3.6 million Instagram followers?"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...mpression=true

[JuliannaVictoria]

There is no backlash, because what Harry stated is precisely what most parents and professionals state. Social media can be a tool used for good, however, there are dark sides to it. Again, I call it a cesspool because of how people treat each other and how addictive it can be. However, there are great aspects of it, and like all things in life, it should be done in moderation.

I think what reporters are now fearing is that they can quite literally become obsolete because the royals can now get their message out without much need for the "middle man". That's a social media tool, and I'm sure most royal watchers are not sitting around on twitter and instagram around the clock, however, when they get a notification that The Royal Family has tweeted something or uploaded something to their instagram, is when they get most of the news. I have to say that I now barely pay attention to what's written in the papers because it's mostly trash or embellished in some way. I want to support the royals and their causes without some biased reporter putting their own spin on things, and social media helps me to do just that.

[Marlo]

Originally Posted by Rudolph

This backlash was building

"JAN MOIR: If social media is really as addictive for kids as drugs, Prince Harry, why not tell that to your 3.6 million Instagram followers?"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...mpression=true

Someone can't read (I am talking about Jan). If she reads the report Harry highlighted both the positive and negative impact of social media.