<story><title>How Instagram closed my account and gave it to a football celebrity</title><url>https://medium.com/@ainiesta/how-instagram-closed-my-account-and-gave-it-to-a-football-celebrity-625a6a770eb3</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>GitHub did the same thing to me. Changed my SSH keys and renamed my account. I used to have &amp;quot;rbishop&amp;quot;, now some other developer has it.&lt;p&gt;No notice, no communication, nothing.&lt;p&gt;When I contacted the person at GitHub who did it he refused to answer any questions or explain anything.&lt;p&gt;So watch out... If you have the same name as an employee&amp;#x27;s drinking buddy, prepare to have your account removed without notice or explanation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rubiquity</author><text>Hey there. I&amp;#x27;m the person that was awarded your account. GitHub has&amp;#x2F;had a form and all I did was submit a request and it was given to me. They said they deemed you as inactive for a substantial period of time. I&amp;#x27;m not saying this is right or wrong but I thought you would take solace in knowing your old username is in good hands.&lt;p&gt;Sincerely,&lt;p&gt;the other rbishop</text></comment>
<story><title>How Instagram closed my account and gave it to a football celebrity</title><url>https://medium.com/@ainiesta/how-instagram-closed-my-account-and-gave-it-to-a-football-celebrity-625a6a770eb3</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>xenadu02</author><text>GitHub did the same thing to me. Changed my SSH keys and renamed my account. I used to have &amp;quot;rbishop&amp;quot;, now some other developer has it.&lt;p&gt;No notice, no communication, nothing.&lt;p&gt;When I contacted the person at GitHub who did it he refused to answer any questions or explain anything.&lt;p&gt;So watch out... If you have the same name as an employee&amp;#x27;s drinking buddy, prepare to have your account removed without notice or explanation.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lsaferite</author><text>Was your account inactive by chance?&lt;p&gt;They have rules that after an account is inactive for a significant amount of time it is subject to removal.&lt;p&gt;I know this because I reclaimed a VERY inactive account. It had one repo that was forked years previously and never had any updates. And the user never contributed to any repos or anything. No activity of any type in years. So, I contacted GH support asking about the account and they removed the account and told me I could register it if I was fast.</text></comment>