Trademark is the normal legal foundation for protecting a name. But trademarks are limited by industry and geography, so attempting to enforce them on a single global namespace like Twitter or DNS is always going to end up with conflicts.
However, this is probably the best way to protect a name you use on Twitter: register a trademark and let them know that you're using your registered name as a Twitter handle and want it maintained for your business/organisation.
1. The account was already popular (i.e., it served a purpose): 4000+ followers.
2. The account was already active with plenty of tweets.
3. No warning. No notice.
4. No back-up of the tweets.
5. The new account is clearly some useless social media expert bullshit.
6. In their defence, the new user claims not to have been informed of how this was going to be handled.
I perfectly understand the general concept of fighting user name squatters, but this just makes no sense to me from any point of view.
Is there any nasty legislation that can penalize Twitter for having accounts misrepresenting the official namesake?