Confiscated Twitter Handle Given to Cameron Winklevoss

You may have noticed that Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss has a shiny new Twitter handle: the elegant @Cameron. But its original owner claims that it was unjustifiably taken from him—and he wants it back.

Cameron Asa, a full-time Bitcoin miner, was given the @Cameron Twitter handle a couple of years after Twitter launched. Then in March 2018, Twitter thought he was a bot—or was acting like one—and he was banned. But despite repeated appeals and complaints, his account was never reinstated. And now it’s moved on.

“I have been an OG to Twitter, I made @Cameron when Twitter came out. I’ve owned the handle for well over 10 years,” Asa told Decrypt, adding, “I literally have done nothing wrong to this platform and the little guy always gets thrown under the bus.”

We have contacted Twitter and Winklevoss and we will update this article if we get a response. 

Fighting to get the account back

When Twitter banned the account, it claimed that Asa’s account violated the social media platform’s rules against spam. “Specifically, your account was found in violation of our rules prohibiting fake or artificial account interactions and engagements,” the email from Twitter stated.

But Asa maintains that he never used artificial tools—he was just a regular user. “Trust me if I knew I did something wrong I wouldn’t be this worked up. But I KNOW I did nothing to lose @Cameron,” he said.

Asa appealed the ban using Twitter's automated service, but never got a response and was unable to speak to a human being.

On May 26, 2018, Asa reached out to several of Twitter’s key players to appeal the confiscation of his original account. Among those listed are Kayvon Beykpour, product lead, and even CEO Jack Dorsey himself. With no luck getting a response, Asa then reached out to Yoel Roth, head of site integrity. He did so a total of three times throughout 2019, with first contact being made on March 15, 2019.

“All I ask is just being a decent human being. It’s been a year man. Never got a reply from twitter about @cameron, I did nothing to lose it. It’s a shame. Any possible way you could help me,” Asa asked. 

He then followed up with two more messages, explaining that he uses Twitter to network. To date, Asa has not received a response. “Then I realized it was a lost cause messaging him and I was being shunned,” Asa said. 

Once Asa’s account was frozen, he was unable to tweet. And Twitter’s policy states that, if an account is inactive, it may free up the username for somebody else to use. When his handle changed hands, his original account was replaced with a computer generated handle. But even that hasn’t been reinstated.

Update: This article has been updated to clarify when Asa was given the Twitter handle.