I need my twitter deleted

Question

I have seen one similar question but it is almost two years old, and there's a bit more to it.

I created a twitter account a long time ago because I was doing live streaming on adult websites. I need it to be taken down. I do not have the phone number, email, or anything else associated with the account. I did not use my real name when signing up because it was adult content and I had stalkers. Because of this, they won't delete the account.

I am wondering if there are any actions I can take. I can prove that it's me in the pictures because I literally have the same exact face and tattoos that I did years ago. My husband can prove that it's him in the pictures as well, but they will not take that as actual proof.

Do I have any options here? It's related to a phone number that many old family members still have in their phones, so when they go to create a twitter account it pops up in their suggested friends or follows or whatever.

Answer 1

I do not have the phone number, email, or anything else associated with the account.

Well, neither do I - so it must be my account.

Unfortunately, the fact that you appear in most or all of the pictures on that account does not prove that you own it. It could be the photographer's account.

Do I have ANY options here

Can you reactivate the email account associated with the Twitter account? Or the phone number? Either would allow you to reset the password and access the account.

You can go to court (in California) and seek an injunction ordering Twitter to delete the photos or give you access. Of course, you have the same issues proving ownership here as you did with Twitter but the court may have different priorities (justice) than Twitter does (corporate protection).

I had an idea. If you (or your husband) own the copyright in the photos (i.e. one of you was the photographer) you could issue a DCMA take-down notice because the poster (who, according to Twitter, isn’t you) does not have permission (even if they did at the time: permission can be revoked). Twitter would be unable to contact the account holder and would be required to remove the images when they got no response.of course, if the photographer was someone else, they could do it. Or you could break the law and say it was you, although I would never recommend this even with a near zero chance of being caught.

Answer 2

When they refuse to give you control over the account because you can not (or they don't let you) prove that it's your account, then another option would be to report it as involuntary pornography of yourself. The penalties faced by platform owners for not removing such content on request are severe. So that will leave Twitter no option but to remove the content.

It doesn't appear as if you can flag a whole account as that, but it is an option when flagging individual tweets. More information on Twitter's policy regarding removal of involuntary pornography and instructions for reporting can be found here (Thanks, ColleenV).

Answer 3

Somewhat analogous to Dale M's answer regarding California: if you live in the EU, the GDPR and its executing national data protection agencies are another, probably more fruitful, since this piece of legislation not only gives you a right to have that data of yours deleted, but also provides a third party ombudsman who should help you in case that the platform (here Twitter) fails to comply with your request. The part about identity verification is quite vague as well in there, but the fact that you - with the help of a dedicated agency - are going against Twitter now (instead of you vs twitter alone), may be of some help. Because now you don't need to convince some Twitter-AI-Bot that it's you or some poor 1st level support with a script, but an independent person whose sole job is to help you