A project of the Integrity InstituteA common challenge with reasoning about identity on the internet is that the same handles or usernames can be controlled by different people across different platforms. Ex: @realDonaldTrump is controlled by the 45th President on Twitter, but might not be on a new platform.
To handle this better, new platforms can reserve the usernames of users from other sites, and require some type of verification in order to create an account with a handle that corresponds to another public profile on another site. For example, they could use the approach used in informal DNS validation - change some element of public data associated with the user on the source platform - i.e. "Add this four digit code to the end of your bio".
This would reduce the risk of impersonation cross platform, and also encourage users to engage as the persona they typically use on the internet, reducing identity drift.