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Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X): Everything you need to know, from layoffs to verification

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Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X), the place the foundations are made up and the check marks don’t matter.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO first introduced his bid to purchase Twitter in April 2022, zealously pushed to rid the platform of spam bots and shield free speech.

“That is simply my robust, intuitive sense that having a public platform that’s maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extraordinarily essential to the way forward for civilization,” Musk said at a TED convention on the day he made his provide. “I don’t care in regards to the economics in any respect.”

Even for one of many richest males on the earth, $44 billion is some huge cash to cough as much as purchase a middling social platform. Regardless of his fervent declarations about increasing “the scope and scale of consciousness” by way of public discourse, the billionaire obtained chilly toes. A month later in Might, he tried to kill the deal, claiming that Twitter had extra bots than its public filings let on. After a very chaotic authorized discovery course of, which even included some embarrassing texts, Musk was pressured to seal the deal. By October, the platform was his.

Since Musk purchased Twitter and took the corporate personal, the information across the microblogging platform has been a whirlwind, rife with verification chaos, API entry shakeups, ban reversals, staggering layoffs, and most notably, rebranding to X.

Musk additionally transitioned from his function as Twitter (X) CEO to serving as its govt chair and CTO. It was introduced on Might 12 that Linda Yaccarino will step in as the next X CEO. Yaccarino will probably be leaving her function as chairman of International Promoting & Partnerships at NBCU.

Should you’re simply catching up, right here’s an entire timeline of what’s taking place on the fowl app, beginning with the latest information:

August 2023

X lowers requirements for its creator payout program

The corporate stated that creators who’ve garnered 5 million impressions within the final three months will probably be eligible for advert income sharing. That requirement was beforehand set to fifteen million impressions.

Creators will be capable of withdraw as little as $10 as an alternative of $50, X stated. Customers nonetheless should be verified and should have a minimum of 500 followers to qualify for payouts.

X CEO claims the company formerly known as Twitter is almost breaking even

“I’ve been on the firm eight weeks,” Yaccarino stated in her first broadcast interview since taking over her new function. “The operational run price proper now… we’re fairly shut to interrupt even.”

“Our knowledge licensing and API with X is an unimaginable enterprise. Our new subscription enterprise [is] rising,” Yaccarino stated. “After which, a part of my, what I’d say, experience and expertise, and what I got here to do, was to drive promoting on the firm.”

Video calls are coming to X

CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed in her first TV interview that video calls will probably be a brand new characteristic coming to the service, as a part of its transformation into an “every little thing app.”

X expands its partnership with Integral Ad Science

The partnership started in January to inform advertisers if their advert is positioned round inappropriate content material. Now, X is testing sensitivity settings, powered by machine studying, that allow advertisers select their thresholds for the sorts of content material they need their advertisements to seem round — and in line with a tweet from X proprietor Elon Musk, advertisers can purchase these much less fascinating, “relaxed” sensitivity advert slots for much less.

Manufacturers can scale back adjacency to gore, extreme profanity and obscenity, focused hate speech, sexual content material, medicine and spam. Quickly, X will add its “relaxed” setting, which affords cheaper promoting alternatives whereas solely filtering for focused hate speech and specific sexual content material.

X takes over @music handle, hinting at future music plans

The @music account was initially operated for 16 years by software program developer Jeremy Vaught, who grew the @music deal with to roughly half one million followers. Vaught posted in anger that X had commandeered the account for itself.

“Tremendous pissed,” Vaught wrote on X, sharing a screenshot of the e-mail X had despatched him informing him of the change.

X streamlines Community Notes

The characteristic traditionally offered data to customers about why they have been seeing a reality examine appended to a tweet. After three years of growth, the corporate says this further context will now be eliminated for individuals who are already skilled with Group Notes.

TweetDeck is renamed to XPro

The corporate has adopted the @Professional deal with as an alternative of @TweetDeck for the instrument. Nevertheless, many elements of the instrument, together with the assistance web page, nonetheless have “Twitter” and “TweetDeck” mentions. Musk hinted at the change a week prior, including that XPro will include a “wide selection of psy op plugins.” There are not any particulars about what sort of plug-ins these is perhaps.

X now allows paid users to hide their checkmarks

Paid verification was launched final 12 months with the Twitter Blue relaunch. The service was just lately renamed to XBlue throughout the Twitter rebrand to X.

The concept is to assist customers profit from subscription options with out displaying that they’re a verified account. The choice to cover the checkmark will present up within the “Profile customization” part of account settings.

The corporate has up to date the help page for paid subscriptions, saying that even in case you conceal the checkmark it is perhaps seen in some locations. The corporate didn’t give any additional particulars about these placeholders.

July 2023

Want to change back to the old Twitter app icon on iOS? Here’s how:

  • In your iPhone, navigate to the Shortcuts app. If in case you have a more recent iPhone, this needs to be pre-installed, but when not, you’ll find it within the App Retailer. In case your iPhone is operating on iOS 12.0 or increased, you’re good to go.
  • From the primary Shortcuts display on the Shortcuts app, you’re going to faucet “All Shortcuts.”
  • Hit the blue plus signal within the top-right nook of your display to arrange a brand new Shortcut.
  • It is best to see a steered motion of “Open App” to construct your new shortcut. Faucet that.
  • Now, you’ll be prompted to arrange a brand new “Open App” shortcut. Subsequent to the place it says “Open,” click on on “App” to seek for the X app. Choose that.
  • When you’ve chosen the “X” app, faucet the share icon on the navigation bar on the backside of your display. This may convey up one other menu, the place you’ll be able to choose “Add to House Display.”
  • Go forward and kind in Twitter as an alternative of “Open App.” Then, faucet the small Shortcut icon subsequent to the place you typed in Twitter.
  • Right here, you’ll be able to add a picture of the Twitter emblem. Nevertheless, you most likely don’t have that already saved to your telephone. Simply Google “Twitter icon.” We used this one.

Apple accepts Twitter app’s rebrand to X in the app store

Apple sometimes doesn’t enable builders to call their apps as a single character, however they appeared to have made an exception.

X additionally modified its App Retailer tagline from “Let’s discuss.” to “Blaze Your Glory!!” Musk himself posted a tweet with this tagline with none context.

X opens up its ad revenue sharing program globally

The corporate announced its “Advertisements Income Sharing” program is now obtainable for eligible creators globally. This system, in line with posts by X proprietor Elon Musk, goals to offer out $5 million within the first spherical of creator funds.

Twitter is now X

The long-lasting fowl emblem is formally replaced with ‘X’ after Elon Musk introduced the change the weekend of July 22. Notably, Musk x.com now additionally redirects to twitter.com. Musk additionally known as this an “interim” emblem, so we’d see one other emblem change sooner or later.

The app additionally changed its official handle to @x as a part of the continued rebranding. The unique @Twitter deal with is now inactive, and its bio reads, “This account is now not energetic. Observe @x for updates.” Nevertheless, the original owner of the @x handle, Gene X Hwang of the company images and videography studio Orange Photography, confirmed to TechCrunch that the company took over his account without warning or financial compensation, telling him the deal with is property of X.

Twitter preps a job listing feature 

Twitter hasn’t formally introduced the job postings characteristic but, though some verified organizations have already been in a position to submit job listings beneath their bios. The job listings take candidates on to the corporate’s web site, the place they will study extra in regards to the place and submit an utility.

Twitter Notes is back…kinda

Twitter Notes, the characteristic that allows Twitter users to publish long-form content, seems to be again on observe, in line with a post from Twitter proprietor Elon Musk on Tuesday. Musk confirmed the corporate’s plans in response to a person’s tweet which claimed the Twitter Notes challenge had just lately been rebranded as “Articles.”

On Tuesday, July 18, person @FaustoChou tweeted that Notes had been renamed to Articles, signaling maybe renewed growth efforts on Twitter’s half. His screenshot confirmed the Notes interface, wanting very like it did earlier than, in addition to different unlaunched options, like Twitter Cash. Musk replied to the tweet, confirming Twitter’s plans.

Twitter shares ad revenue with verified creators

Twitter will now pay creators for a share of the advert income earned from advertisements served within the replies to their posts. Twitter Blue subscribers who’ve earned greater than 5 million tweet impressions every month for the final 3 months are eligible to hitch the creator payouts.

In accordance with Elon Musk, the primary spherical of creator payouts will complete $5 million, and will probably be cumulative from the month of February onward. These payouts will probably be delivered by way of Stripe.

Regardless of this system’s vital payouts, some creators weren’t completely happy — and took their complaints to Twitter proprietor Elon Musk. In a collection of tweets, Musk addressed creators’ considerations over issues just like the types of accounts that were eligible for monetization, rate limits and other issues.

With the announcement of new DM settings, Twitter admits to having a Verified spammer issue

Starting “as soon as” July 14, Twitter will introduce a brand new messages setting geared toward decreasing spam in DMs by shifting messages from Verified customers you don’t observe again to your “Message Request” inbox as an alternative of your predominant inbox. Solely messages from folks you observe will arrive in your main inbox going ahead. Notably, these modifications may even now apply to everybody who has their inboxes open to permit messages from anybody.

Earlier than turning into pay-to-play, Twitter verification indicated an individual was a public or notable determine of some kind — like a politician, celeb, athlete, journalist or different well-known particular person. By making the Verified blue checkmark accessible to anybody who bought it, Twitter diluted the worth of verification.

That apparently escalated to the purpose that individuals have turn into bothered by Verified customers spamming their predominant inbox, after they had set it open to obtain DMs from the blue-badged crowd. In different phrases, Twitter has a Verified person spam downside.

Twitter blocks links to Threads

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is pushing again at experiences that Twitter visitors is tanking because of the July 5 launch of a brand new competitor, Instagram Threads. Nevertheless, on Monday, July 10, customers reported that Twitter appears to be selectively blocking hyperlinks to Threads.internet’s web site in Twitter searches, making it tougher for anybody to floor conversations on Threads or find customers’ profiles.

Twitter threatens to sue Meta over its new Threads app

Lower than 24 hours after Threads launched, the Elon Musk-owned firm accused Meta of poaching former Twitter workers to create the brand new platform.

“Twitter intends to strictly implement its mental property rights, and calls for that Meta take instant steps to cease utilizing any Twitter commerce secrets and techniques or different extremely confidential data,” Spiro wrote within the letter, which Semafor shared on-line. “Twitter reserves all rights, together with, however not restricted to, the fitting to hunt each civil cures and injunctive aid with out additional discover to forestall any additional retention, disclosure, or use of its mental property by Meta.”

June 2023

Only verified users will be able to access TweetDeck after 30 days from now

After swaths of customers have been unable to access parts of TweetDeck over the last few days, Twitter began rolling out a brand new model of the net app to customers July 3. The corporate additionally added that in 30 days, customers must be verified to entry TweetDeck. This implies solely Twitter Blue subscribers, verified organizations and a few people who’ve been gifted verification by Twitter will be capable of use TweetDeck come August.

Twitter limits the number of tweets users can read in a day

Twitter is placing limits to what number of tweets its customers can learn because the social media platform suffers prolonged outage that has stymied customers’ skill to trace new posts.

Verified account holders can peruse a most of 6,000 posts day by day, whereas unverified customers should cope with a drastically lowered restrict of 600 posts. Newly registered, unverified customers face even tighter restrictions with an allowance of a mere 300 posts per day, in line with Elon Musk. (He has since elevated the restrict to 10,000, 1,000 and 500, respectively.)

These learn limits impacted TweetDeck users specifically, reporting main issues together with notifications and whole columns failing to load.

Twitter requires an account to view tweets

Should you’re not logged into your Twitter account, or don’t have one, and attempt to view a tweet, you’ll be offered with a sign-in display. Nevertheless, days later, Twitter silently removed the login requirement for viewing tweets.

When Twitter began imposing the login requirement, Musk stated that he took these “momentary” measures to forestall knowledge scraping.

The corporate hasn’t made any official announcement about permitting customers to view hyperlinks while you aren’t logged in or given any particulars on what measures it has taken to cease scraping.

Subscribers can now post 25,000-character-long tweets

The corporate made the change to its Twitter Blue web page right this moment, indicating the restrict. An engineer at Twitter, Prachi Poddar, additionally introduced the change by posting a long tweet.

Twitter faces a $250 million lawsuit filed by major music publishers

The Nationwide Music Publishers’ Affiliation (NMPA), representing 17 publishers, listed 1,700 songs for which it despatched a number of copyright violation notices to Twitter. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Courtroom in Nashville, says that Twitter didn’t take any motion towards these notices. The publishers’ group stated within the submitting that it’s in search of fines of as much as $150,000 for every violation.

The lawsuit alleged that the social community “fuels its enterprise with numerous infringing copies of musical ‘compositions, violating Publishers’ and others’ unique rights beneath copyright regulation.” It added that, in contrast to its opponents TikTok and Instagram, Twitter hasn’t struck a music licensing deal for using copyrighted music.

Twitter is being evicted from its Boulder office

Courtroom paperwork present that Twitter owes three months’ hire to its Boulder landlord, and a choose has signed off on evicting the tech large from that workplace.

In Might the owner took it to courtroom, and on Might 31 the choose issued an order that the sheriff ought to help within the eviction of Twitter inside the subsequent 49 days — i.e. earlier than the top of July. The case quantity is 2023CV30342 in Boulder District Courtroom.

As many as 300 workers as soon as labored in Twitter’s Boulder places of work, however between layoffs, different firings, and resignations, it’s most likely lower than half of that now.

Window to edit tweets is increased to one hour for Blue subscribers

The time restrict to edit tweets has elevated from half-hour to 1 hour for Blue subscribers, giving customers a much bigger window to alter their tweets and proper any typos.

Linda Yaccarino is officially Twitter CEO

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino formally began her new gig on Monday, June 5, in line with a tweet.

Trust and safety lead resigns

Ella Irwin took over for Yoel Roth, who famously left the company throughout the early days of Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover.

Might 2023

Twitter launched Community Notes for images in posts

The newest characteristic is an effort to place extra onus on crowdsourced moderation by permitting customers to deal with eventualities of morphed photographs or AI-generated photographs throughout the platform the place the images are posted. The launches comes days after a faux AI-generated picture about an attack on the Pentagon spread quickly as distinguished accounts retweeted it.

Twitter’s new API tier costs $5,000 per month

Twitter API Professional for startups provides builders the power to fetch 1 million tweets monthly and submit 300,000 tweets monthly, and offers them entry to the total archive search endpoint.

Twitter Blue users can now upload two-hour videos

Twitter made modifications to its paid plan, permitting subscribers to add two-hour movies — increasing the previous 60-minute limit.

The corporate additionally modified its Twitter Blue page and stated the video file dimension restrict for paid customers is now elevated from 2GB to 8GB. Whereas earlier longer video add was solely doable from the net, now it’s additionally doable by way of the iOS app. Regardless of these modifications, the utmost high quality for add nonetheless stays 1080p.

The rumors are confirmed: NBCU’s leader Linda Yaccarino as the next CEO of Twitter

Musk confirmed Yaccarino’s new function in a tweet this morning (Might 12), a day after he introduced that he had accomplished his seek for a brand new CEO.

Elon Musk tweets that he has found a new CEO 

“Excited to announce that I’ve a brand new CEO for X/Twitter,” Musk wrote in a tweet on Might 11. “She will probably be beginning in ~6 weeks! My function will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software program & sysops.”

Twitter released its first version of encrypted DMs

At the moment, this characteristic is simply obtainable to verified Blue customers or accounts related to verified organizations. Moreover, the encryption characteristic isn’t appropriate with group messages and Twitter doesn’t provide safety towards man-in-the-middle assaults.

Twitter now allows you to react to DMs with emojis

Twitter has launched a brand new characteristic that lets customers select nearly any emoji to react to a DM in a dialog. Beforehand, the corporate allowed you to react to solely the latest DM with solely a choose set of emojis. CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the brand new characteristic is rolling out with the newest app replace.

Twitter is purging old accounts and freeing up desired usernames, according to Elon Musk 

In accordance with current tweets by proprietor Elon Musk, Twitter is purging inactive accounts which have had “no exercise in any respect for a number of years.”

Twitter is contemplating a cheaper verification plan for organizations

Twitter is considering an organizational verification plan that doesn’t value $1,000 a month. Over the Cinco de Mayo weekend, Elon Musk tweeted that the corporate is engaged on a less expensive plan for small companies, however didn’t give any particulars about the fee.

Twitter confirmed Circle tweets were temporarily not private 

Twitter confirmed a safety error that made Circle tweets floor publicly. TechCrunch reported the glitch in early April, however the platform confirmed the difficulty Might 5 in an e-mail despatched to Twitter Circle customers.

“In April 2023, a safety incident might have allowed customers outdoors of your Twitter Circle to see tweets that ought to have in any other case been restricted to the Circle to which you have been posting,” the e-mail stated. Twitter claims that the bug has now been mounted, and that the staff is aware of what induced it.

Twitter makes its API free for public announcement accounts 

Twitter introduced on Might 2 that it’s making its API free for verified authorities or public-owned providers posting about public utility alerts equivalent to climate alerts, transportation data and emergency warnings. This comes a month after the corporate introduced its new API pricing tiers.

A bug on Twitter causes legacy blue checks to reappear by updating your bio

It doesn’t appear to matter what textual content you’re including to your bio — TechCrunch reporter Amanda Silberling added just a few areas, then obtained her examine again for a second. It even confirmed up with the previous textual content that designates that she is “notable in authorities, information, leisure, or one other designated class,” and she or he didn’t, in actual fact, pay for this. However when you refresh the web page it disappears. In actual fact, it’s unclear whether or not anybody else may even see your examine briefly reappear.

April 2023

EU warns Twitter over disinformation

Twitter was confirmed April 25 as one in all 19 major tech platforms subject to centralized oversight by the European Union’s govt beginning this fall, when so-called very massive on-line platforms (VLOPs) are anticipated to be compliant with the Digital Companies Act (DSA). However the Fee has not wasted any time warning the Elon Musk-owned social community that issues aren’t wanting good for staying on the fitting facet of the incoming regulation.

In a pair of tweets, Vera Jourova, the EU’s values and transparency VP, warned of “yet one more destructive signal” by Twitter — accusing the platform beneath Musk of “not making digital data house any safer and free from the Kremlin #disinformation & malicious affect”.

Twitter now shows labels on tweets with reduced visibility

Twitter stated that labels will probably be proven to each authors and viewers. Often, these tweets will present textual content equivalent to “Visibility restricted: this Tweet might violate Twitter’s guidelines towards Hateful Conduct.”

The app’s enforcement policy says that tweets with such labels won’t present up in search outcomes, suggestions or timelines — these tweets will probably be hidden in each the “For You” and “Following timelines. Moreover, there will probably be no advertisements positioned adjoining to posts with lowered visibility.

Twitter restored Blue verification mark for top accounts, even if they didn’t pay for Twitter Blue

Over the April twenty first weekend, a number of high accounts (with greater than 1 million followers) obtained their verification marks again. Nevertheless, lots of them, together with author Neil Gaiman, footballer Riyad Mahrez, musician Lil Nas X, actress Janel Parrish Lengthy and British TV presenter Richard Osman stated that they didn’t pay for the blue badge.

In March, The New York Times reported that Twitter was contemplating handing out a free verification mark to the highest 10,000 manufacturers and firms. It’s not clear if the corporate is making use of the identical coverage to private accounts.

Twitter removes ‘government-funded’ news labels

Twitter has eliminated “government-funded media” labels on all accounts, from NPR to the Chinese language state-affiliated Xinhua Information. The app even seems to have deleted its web page explaining the “government-funded media” labels.

Twitter sends an email seemingly requiring advertisers to have a verified checkmark

Several users have posted screenshots of an e-mail reportedly despatched by Twitter, which states that ranging from April 21, verified checkmarks are required to proceed operating advertisements on the platform.

Twitter officially kills legacy blue checkmarks on 4/20

With the legacy checks gone, the app can have verification marks just for paid customers and companies, in addition to authorities entities and officers. Now if a person sees a blue examine mark and clicks on it, the label reads: “This account is verified as a result of they’re subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their telephone quantity.”

Microsoft drops Twitter from its advertising platform

Microsoft is dropping the fowl app from its promoting platform beginning on April 25, almost two months after Twitter introduced that it’ll start charging a minimal of $42,000 monthly to customers of its API, together with enterprises and analysis establishments. The strikes imply customers will now not be capable of entry their account, or create, schedule or in any other case handle tweets by way of Microsoft’s free social media administration service.

Twitter proprietor Elon Musk threatened to take authorized motion:

Twitter quietly removes policy against misgendering trans people

Twitter up to date its content material moderation pointers concerning hateful content material, eradicating a coverage that prohibited the focused deadnaming or misgendering of transgender folks. Enacted in 2018, the coverage explicitly acknowledged that it violated Twitter’s guidelines to repeatedly and purposefully name a transgender particular person by the fallacious identify or pronouns.

Twitter to label tweets that get downranked for violating its hate speech policy

Twitter plans to “quickly” start including seen labels on tweets which have been recognized as doubtlessly violating its insurance policies, which has impacted their visibility. It didn’t say when precisely the system could be absolutely rolled out throughout its community.

Sometimes, when tweets violate Twitter’s insurance policies, one of many actions the corporate can take is to restrict the attain of these tweets — or one thing it calls “visibility filtering.” In these eventualities, the tweets stay on-line however turn into much less discoverable, as they’re excluded from areas like search outcomes, tendencies, beneficial notifications, For You and Following timelines, and extra.

Traditionally, the broader public wouldn’t essentially know if a tweet had been moderated on this method. Now Twitter says that may change.

10,000-character-long tweets for Blue subscribers

Twitter’s new characteristic will let Blue subscribers submit 10,000-character-long posts — as if the social community is trying to compete with a rival newsletter platform. Twitter has additionally added help for daring and italic textual content formatting.

Lengthy-form writing can be not completely new. Final June, the corporate launched a program known as Twitter Notes for select writers. Nevertheless, that program was shut down beneath Musk. After taking up the corporate he also killed newsletter tool Revue, a startup Twitter had acquired in 2021.

NPR, PBS and a handful of other news organizations bail on Twitter as Musk meddles with account labels

A PBS spokesperson confirmed to Axios that PBS had “no plans to renew tweeting” after Twitter gave it a murky “government-funded media” label over the weekend. A number of other news entities appeared to have adopted go well with, together with the distinguished Boston NPR affiliate WBUR, Hawaii Public Radio and LA-based native information supply LAist.

The Australian Broadcasting Firm (ABC Australia), Australia’s Particular Broadcasting Service (SBS), New Zealand’s public broadcaster RNZ, Sweden’s SR Ekot and SVT, and Catalonia’s TV3.cat a were labeled “government-funded media” weeks later.

Twitter partners with eToro to show real-time stock and crypto information

This expands upon the social community’s Cashtag characteristic, which offered data about a limited number of stocks and crypto coins through TradingView data.

The brand new partnership with eToro goes past simply displaying data. It additionally redirects customers to the eToro website the place they will interact in buying and selling. Should you seek for a inventory on Twitter, you will notice a button saying “View on eToro,” which redirects to the location.

Elon Musk says he only bought Twitter because he thought he’d be forced to 

Elon Musk gave a uncommon interview to an precise reporter late on Tuesday, chatting with BBC reporter James Clayton on Twitter Areas. In the course of the interview, Clayton pressed Musk on whether or not his buy of Twitter was, in the long run, one thing he went by way of with willingly, or whether or not it was one thing he did as a result of the energetic courtroom case on the time wherein Twitter was attempting to power him to undergo with the sale was going badly.

The reply was that Musk did certainly solely do the deal as a result of he believed legally, he was going to be pressured to take action anyway.

Elon Musk says Twitter will officially remove legacy checkmarks on 4/20

That is the “last date,” he stated in a tweet. If the transfer goes by way of, Twitter can have verification marks just for paid customers and companies, and authorities entities and officers.

Twitter, Inc. is now X Corp.

Twitter, Inc. is now known as X Corp., in line with a court filing in California.

Since Twitter is now not a public firm, it doesn’t need to report updates like identify modifications to the SEC. However in any case, the brand new identify was noticed in an April 4 doc associated to far-right activist Laura Loomer’s lawsuit towards Twitter and Fb.

“Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and now not exists,” the doc states.

Ex-Twitter CEO and other execs sue firm over unpaid legal bills

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Courtroom, alleged that Twitter has to pay greater than $1 million to the previous executives for authorized payments they incurred whereas on the firm to reply to requests by the Division of Justice and Securities and Trade Fee.

Twitter Circle tweets aren’t very private

Quite a few Twitter customers reported a bug on April 10 wherein Circle tweets are surfacing on the algorithmically generated For You timeline. That implies that your supposedly personal posts may breach containment to succeed in an unintended viewers, which may rapidly spark some uncomfortable conditions.

TechCrunch has spoken to a number of customers who’ve additionally skilled this glitch firsthand; many more have reported the glitch of their tweets. Most frequently, plainly Circle tweets are being surfaced within the For You timeline to customers who observe the poster, however are usually not of their Circle. Others have reported that their Circle tweets are reaching even additional than those that observe them.

A year later, Twitter is now resurfacing official Russian accounts in search results

The Elon Musk-owned platform has resumed surfacing accounts of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Embassy in search outcomes. A former Twitter worker instructed the publication that this transfer is probably going due to a coverage change.

Twitter won’t let you retweet, like or reply to Substack links

Twitter is censoring Substack hyperlinks by making the posts inconceivable to answer to, like or retweet. Whereas quote-tweeting works, merely urgent the retweet button surfaces an error message: “Some actions on this Tweet have been disabled by Twitter.”

You didn’t hear this from us, however in case you hyperlink to a Substack by way of a redirected URL, it appears to submit with out restrictions.

Twitter Blue subscribers will now be shown ‘half ads’ on the platform

Twitter is rolling out further options for Blue subscribers together with displaying 50% of advertisements of their timeline in comparison with non-paid customers and a visibility enhance in search.

“As you scroll, you will notice roughly twice as many natural or non-promoted Tweets positioned in between promoted Tweets or advertisements. There could also be instances when there are extra or fewer non-promoted Tweets between promoted Tweets,” Twitter’s description of the characteristic says.

Whereas Twitter is claiming to scale back advertisements on paid subscribers’ feeds, it’s exhausting to show if they’re really seeing fewer advertisements other than anecdotal experiences.

Twitter singles NPR out with misleading state-backed media label

NPR’s Twitter account on the platform now comes with a tag denoting it as “US state-affiliated media.” However NPR doesn’t meet Twitter’s personal definition for a state-affiliated account:

State-affiliated media is outlined as retailers the place the state workouts management over editorial content material by way of monetary assets, direct or oblique political pressures, and/or management over manufacturing and distribution…

State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, just like the BBC within the UK for instance, are usually not outlined as state-affiliated media for the needs of this coverage.

NPR later announced that it’ll now not be posting content material to its 52 official Twitter feeds, turning into the primary main information group to go silent on the social media platform.

Twitter’s verification changes feel like an accidental April Fools’ joke

Musk had claimed that beginning on April 1, blue checkmarks that beforehand indicated that an account was reputable, verified and notable could be maintained solely for individuals who have a subscription to Twitter Blue. The change could be a part of a wider push for Twitter to gate beforehand free options, and bundle new ones, beneath the $8 monthly Twitter Blue subscription, which prices $11 on iOS and Android gadgets.

As quite a few celebrities and companies spoke out to say they wouldn’t pay the $8 price, it appeared that eradicating so many blue checks could be simpler stated than performed. As an alternative, Twitter merely updated the text accompanying a blue examine to make it unclear whether or not somebody was verified for being notable, or for paying for Twitter Blue. In an final act of pettiness, Twitter eliminated The New York Instances’ verification examine when the information large stated it wouldn’t pay for verification.

Based mostly on early returns, the revamped Twitter Blue has yet to contribute significantly to Twitter’s bottom line, with simply $11 million generated from cell signups in its first three months.

March 2023

Twitter announces new API tiers; free, basic and enterprise levels

The three API tiers embrace a free stage meant for content material posting bots, a $100/month fundamental stage and a pricey enterprise stage. Subscribing to any stage will get entry to the Advertisements API at no further value. 

Twitter talked about that over the following 30 days, the corporate will discontinue previous entry ranges, together with Commonplace (for v1.1), Important and Elevated (for v2), and Premium.

Developers remain unhappy with Twitter’s new API construction.

Elon Musk says Twitter will only show verified accounts on its “For You” timeline starting April 15

Musk justified the transfer by saying this was the “solely practical method to handle superior AI bot swarms taking up.”

New Twitter accounts now have to wait only 30 days to purchase Twitter Blue

Twitter decreases the wait to buy Twitter Blue for newly created Twitter accounts from 90 days to 30 days.

“New subscriptions to Twitter Blue can be found globally on internet, iOS, or Android. Not all options can be found on all platforms. Newly created Twitter accounts won’t be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 30 days. We may additionally impose ready intervals for brand new accounts sooner or later at our discretion, and with out discover,” the Twitter Blue web page reads.

Twitter to kill ‘legacy’ blue checks on April 1

Twitter introduced that the removing of legacy blue checkmarks will start April 1 for customers that aren’t subscribed to Twitter Blue.

Elon tweeted back in December that the corporate will take away legacy checkmarks “in just a few months.” After that, customers with legacy blue checks had been seeing a pop-up after they clicked on their checkmark, which learn, “It is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.” However as soon as Twitter botched this removing of checkmarks, they modified the copy once more — as of now, users cannot distinguish whether someone has a checkmark as a result of they paid, or as a result of they have been deemed notable.

Twitter’s privacy-preserving Tor service goes dark

Twitter’s Tor service, a model of the location that might be accessed even in nations the place the social community is banned, has gone darkish after the corporate did not renew its certificates, which expired on March 6.

Pavel Zoneff, director of strategic communications on the Tor Challenge, instructed TechCrunch that the location “is now not obtainable seemingly with no plans to resume.”

Twitter Blue is now available in more than 20 countries

This growth makes the social community’s subscription service obtainable in additional than 35 nations the world over.

These nations embrace Netherlands, Poland, Eire, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus.

February 2023

Layoffs continue

Twitter laid off greater than 200 workers in its fourth spherical of cuts, together with loyalist Esther Crawford — the chief govt of Twitter funds who oversaw the corporate’s Twitter Blue verification subscription.

Twitter’s workers is down from about 7,500 workers to lower than 2,000 since Musk.

One of many quite a few rounds of cuts eradicated the platform’s total accessibility staff. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) known as on Elon Musk to convey the accessibility staff again in an open letter. Markey requested a response by March 17.

Twitter allows cannabis ads in states where it’s legal

After updating its ad policy on February 15, Twitter turned the primary social media app within the U.S. to permit hashish promoting. Hashish advertisements will run on Twitter in U.S. states the place hashish is authorized and in Canada.

Twitter delays launch of its new API platform…again

The preliminary date set to chop free entry to Twitter’s API was February 9, which was then prolonged to February 13. Now, the social community has delayed the shutdown once more, this time with no date set.

The delay jeopardizes the plans of builders and startups constructing instruments across the Twitter API as they wouldn’t have any readability on future spending and funds allocation on the developer platform.

Twitter’s basic tier of its API will cost $100 per month

The corporate initially deliberate to close down free entry to its API on February 9. Now it has prolonged this deadline to February 13. Twitter stated that it’ll cost $100 monthly for the essential tier of API. This may get builders entry to a “low stage of API utilization,” in addition to the Advertisements API.

When builders attempting to hunt readability across the new API guidelines went to the developer forum website, they discovered that the location had been put behind a login. The discussion board was lastly accessible 4 days in a while February 13.

Twitter Blue introduces 4,000-character tweets

Twitter introduced the power to submit longer tweets for paid customers on February 8. As an alternative of being restricted to 280 characters, paying Blue subscribers can submit tweets which might be as much as 4,000 characters.

Whereas solely Twitter Blue subscribers can submit lengthy tweets, all customers will be capable of learn them. You will notice solely the primary 280 characters on the timeline, and if you wish to learn extra, you’ll be able to click on on “Present extra.”

Elon Musk claims Twitter will start sharing ad revenue with creators

Elon Musk introduced in a tweet on February 3 that the corporate would quickly start sharing promoting income with creators on the platform for the primary time. He follows up the announcement with a catch: Eligible customers should be signed up for Twitter Blue.

Payouts have but to reach creators’ wallets.

More monetization pushes: Twitter Blue expands new countries, brings back Spaces curation

Twitter Blue subscriptions are actually obtainable in Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, making it 12 areas in complete to which customers can subscribe to it as of February 2. On February 8, Twitter Blue extended services further to India, Indonesia and Brazil.

Twitter additionally introduced launching a brand new Areas tab with curated stations for reside and recorded areas, together with podcasts. The social community is making podcasts obtainable solely to Blue subscribers and “some folks on Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android apps.”

Twitter to end free access to its API

Twitter will discontinue providing free entry to the Twitter API beginning February 9 and can launch a paid model, Twitter stated because it seems to be for extra avenues to monetize the platform.

Per week later and days earlier than the February 9 deadline, Elon Musk stated that after getting suggestions from builders, Twitter will provide a write-only API for “bots providing good content that is free.”

Twitter discontinues CoTweets

Twitter announced February 1 that it’s discontinuing CoTweeting, a characteristic that allowed two customers to co-author a tweet. Customers will be capable of view the set of co-tweets for a month. After that, they are going to be mechanically transformed to retweets on the co-author’s profile.

Screenshot of Twitter's new policy in sunsetting CoTweets

January 2023

Twitter partners with DoubleVerify and IAS on brand safety initiative

Resulting from declining advert income and advertiser exits, Twitter introduced on January 25 that it has teamed up with adtech corporations DoubleVerify and Integral Advert Science (IAS) to inform advertisers if their advert is positioned round inappropriate content material. This system, obtainable first for U.S.-based promoting campaigns, permits manufacturers to research the content material adjoining to — primarily tweets above and under the advert — all sorts of advertisements, together with promoted tweets.

Twitter rolls out its bookmark feature on iOS

The brand new design shows the bookmark button beneath the expanded tweet view, making it simpler so as to add a submit to your bookmarks.

Earlier than the change, you needed to faucet on the share button to open the sharing card after which faucet on the bookmark choice to avoid wasting a tweet. Along with the brand new button, as quickly as you faucet on the button, you will notice a banner on the high of the display that claims “Present all bookmarks.”

The choice is at present seen solely on the iOS app, however we will count on that Twitter will roll this out to Android and the net quickly.

Picture Credit: Twitter

Twitter quietly bans third-party clients

After cutting off prominent app makers like Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter quietly up to date its developer phrases to ban third-party clients altogether on January 19.

The “restrictions” part of the corporate’s developer agreement was up to date with a clause prohibiting “use or entry the Licensed Supplies to create or try to create a substitute or comparable service or product to the Twitter Functions.” Earlier within the week, the corporate stated that it was “imposing long-standing API guidelines” in disallowing shoppers entry to its platform however didn’t cite which particular guidelines builders have been violating.

Because of this, third-party Twitter shoppers started offloading their apps from App Stores.

Twitter now offers an annual Blue subscription

Customers now have an opportunity to get a reduction for $84/12 months in the event that they buy an annual Blue subscription on the net.

Twitter Blue, together with the brand new annual plan, is at present obtainable within the U.S., the U.Okay., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

monthly and annual pricing for Twitter Blue for iOS and Web depending on country

Picture Credit: Twitter

Twitter HQ furniture auctions

In a wierd try to generate profits, Twitter is auctioning off surplus office furniture (public sale is now closed) that it doesn’t want anymore, now that hundreds of workers have both left the company or been laid off. Whenever you’re quickly dropping advertisers and apparently not paying your rent, why not go for the hail mary?

Twitter makes algorithmic “For You” timeline the default

The corporate has tried to drag this stunt previously, solely to offer the choice to change again to a chronological timeline after a lot of backlashes.

What’s completely different this time? The Elon Musk-led firm is now displaying each algorithmic and chronological feeds side-by-side. Customers can swap between them by swiping on their telephone screens. Till now, customers needed to faucet on the flicker icon within the top-right nook to change between the “House” and “Newest” timelines. Twitter is justifying its newest change by saying that customers can now simply swipe between the renamed “For You” and “Following” timelines.

  • January 13: Twitter rolled out the dual-timeline replace to the net however at the moment the social community used to recollect your selection.
  • January 20: The corporate made the “For You” feed default on the net when customers first opened Twitter in a tab or refreshed the web page.
  • January 24: Now, Twitter remembers your selections once more.
  • February 7: Twitter remembers your selections once more on iOS and Android, too.

Twitter’s advanced search filters for mobile are said to be coming soon

In accordance with social media analyst Matt Navarra, Twitter’s superior search filters for cell are coming quickly.

Right here’s what it seems to be like:

Twitter lifts the political ad ban to bolster revenue

The corporate initially enforced the ban back in 2019. At the moment, it stated that “political message attain needs to be earned, not purchased.” Twitter charted a distinct path from different social networks like Fb and Instagram, which allowed political advertisements.

The corporate’s announcement to raise the political advert ban comes at a time when advertisers have been pulling back spending on the platform, and the corporate has been chopping down its internal revenue projections.

December 2022

Twitter Blue users can now upload 60-minute videos

On December 23, the Twitter Blue page was up to date declaring that subscribers can now add 60-minute movies from the net at 1080p decision and 2GB in file dimension.

Layoffs continue, impacting employees in public policy, engineering

In accordance with posts on Twitter and LinkedIn from a former public coverage worker on December 22, Twitter lower half of its public coverage staff.

The corporate additionally laid off some engineers in infrastructure by way of e-mail on December 16. Throughout all of Twitter, it’s estimated that about 75% of workers have both chosen to go away or have been laid off since Elon Musk took possession of the corporate in October.

Twitter now displays stock and cryptocurrency prices directly in search results

To entry the brand new characteristic, customers have to only sort the greenback image adopted by the related ticker image, e.g. “$GOOG” or “$ETH” (minus the quote marks), within the search bar and Twitter will show the present worth. This additionally works with out utilizing the $ image in some cases, however it’s much less constant and doesn’t at all times return the inventory or crypto costs as requested.

If somebody needs to know extra particulars a couple of inventory or cryptocurrency, they will hit the “View on Robinhood” button.

You can now see how many people view your tweets

A tweet’s View Rely will probably be seen to everybody, not simply the proprietor of the account.

“Twitter is rolling out View Rely, so you’ll be able to see what number of instances a tweet has been seen! That is regular for video,” Elon Musk wrote in a tweet. “Exhibits how far more alive Twitter is than it could appear, as over 90% of Twitter customers learn, however don’t tweet, reply or like, as these are public actions.”

Twitter Blue for Business now allows companies to identify their employees

Twitter’s product supervisor Esther Crawford said the social media platform is launching a pilot program for Blue for Enterprise with choose companies. The corporate plans to broaden this to extra organizations subsequent 12 months.

Twitter goes on an account suspension spree, including prominent journalists

A day after Twitter crafted a brand new coverage to clarify its resolution to ban an account that tracks Elon Musk’s private jet, Twitter also suspended its open source competitor Mastodon from the service.

Inside the similar day, Twitter suspended a lot of distinguished journalists on the platform with out warning. “Identical doxxing guidelines apply to ‘journalists’ as to everybody else,” Elon Musk tweeted in a reply in regards to the journalists’ suspensions.

The corporate seemingly had a glitch that allowed banned customers to nonetheless take part in Twitter Areas. A gaggle of the banned journalists began a bunch dialog on Areas the place Musk himself joined in. Shortly after, the app pulled its Spaces group audio feature quickly.

Twitter shuts down Revue, its newsletter platform

Revue, the publication platform acquired by Twitter in January 2021, sent a message to newsletter writers on December 14 declaring, “We’ve made the tough resolution to close down Revue.” Writers had till January 18, 2023 to retrieve their knowledge at first was deleted.

Twitter disperses the Trust & Safety Council

Twitter dispersed the advisory group consisting of roughly 100 impartial researchers and human rights activists from around the globe. The council members acquired an e-mail on Monday, December 12 from the corporate saying that the Belief & Security Council is “not the very best construction” to get exterior insights into the corporate product and coverage technique.

Elon Musk says Twitter will remove all legacy verifications ‘in a few months’

Twitter will take away all legacy blue checkmarks “in just a few months,” Elon Musk tweeted on December 12. Earlier than Musk purchased Twitter, checkmarks have been used to confirm people and entities as energetic, genuine and notable accounts of curiosity.

This previous week, many blue checkmark holders have been seeing a pop-up after they click on on their blue checkmark that reads, “It is a legacy verified account. It could or is probably not notable.”

Twitter Blue relaunches with new verification process, plus Blue for Business

Twitter is formally bringing again the Twitter Blue subscription on December 12, beginning in 5 nations earlier than rapidly expanding to others. The app updated its terms to specify that users will need to verify their phone numbers earlier than buying the Twitter Blue subscription.

Net sign-ups will value $8 monthly and iOS signal ups will value $11 monthly for “entry to subscriber-only options, together with the blue checkmark,” per a tweet from the corporate account. Twitter Blue became available on Android on the similar worth as iOS in January 2023.

Along with the relaunch of Twitter Blue, the corporate additionally started rolling out a new offering called Blue for Business that provides a gold checkmark to firm accounts.

Twitter’s Community Notes feature is now global

Group Notes, beforehand often known as Birdwatch, are actually seen around the globe. Group Notes is the social media large’s crowdsourced fact-checking system.

Moderators who’re a part of this system can add notes to tweets so as to add context and customers can then vote in the event that they decide the context to be useful. Previous to this world growth, Group Notes have been solely seen to customers within the U.S. Twitter added moderators from the U.Okay., Eire, Australia and New Zealand in January 2023.

Twitter announces charging $11 on iOS for Blue subscription to offset App Store fees

When Twitter launched its new subscription plan with a verification mark on November 9, it charged customers $7.99 monthly. In an try to offset App Retailer charges, the corporate is charging iOS customers $11 for the brand new subscription plan — although the Twitter Blue plan is on halt.

November 2022

Twitter’s Community Notes updated to better address ‘low quality’ contributions

The platform’s crowdsourced fact-checking system, Group Notes, are notes written by customers which might be appended to tweets to offer additional clarification and context.

The Group Notes algorithm change includes scoring notes the place contributors clarify why a tweet shouldn’t be deemed deceptive.

Twitter announces a new multicolored verification system

Elon Musk declares that Twitter will tentatively roll out a brand new multicolored verification system the place corporations will get a gold checkmark, authorities officers will get a gray checkmark and the blue checkmark will probably be devoted to people even when they don’t seem to be celebrities. Meaning the blue checkmark will probably be used with legacy verified accounts and people who purchase the corporate’s proposed $8 per month paid plan.

Should you’re confused about all of the checkmarks, you’re not alone. Right here’s a quick guide on what every checkmark and badge means.

Twitter Blue verification chaos ensues

On November 9, CEO Elon Musk floated modifications to Twitter’s system for verifying person accounts, together with charging $8 per month for it. The social media firm seemingly started rolling out a brand new tier of Twitter Blue, its premium subscription service. In accordance with a tweet by Esther Crawford, a former product lead, the brand new Twitter Blue plan wasn’t but reside, however some customers noticed notifications as a part of a reside take a look at.

The corporate additionally launched grey-colored official checkmarks for notable accounts equivalent to corporations and politicians. However inside hours of the launch, Elon Musk killed it. Crawford clarified that the gray “Official” labels are nonetheless going out as a part of the brand new Twitter Blue product.

The brand new $8 Twitter Blue plan started rolling out to iOS customers within the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.Okay with the one characteristic obtainable on the time being the blue “verified” checkmark. This induced a number of fake accounts pretending to be celebrities, manufacturers and in any other case influential folks to create accounts and unfold misinformation.

The Twitter exodus begins with mass layoffs and exits

Elon Musk laid off 3,700 folks on November 3, nearly half its workers, shortly after finishing the acquisition. Twitter was sued in a category motion lawsuit in response to not giving workers advance discover of a mass layoff, alleging Twitter violated employee safety legal guidelines.

Per week later, the app reached out to some former workers to return as they have been laid off “by mistake.”

Along with layoffs, a round of executive departures additionally swept by way of the corporate. In Musk’s first email to his new staff, he talked about ending distant work and making the struggle towards spam a precedence.

October 2022

Elon Musk is revamping Twitter’s verification system

Twitter begins overhauling a brand new and dearer model of Twitter Blue, the platform’s paid plan, that may reportedly value $19.99 monthly and provides customers a verified badge. On the time, Twitter Blue value $4.99 monthly within the U.S.

In accordance with a report from The Verge, the corporate plans to take away verification badges from present holders in the event that they don’t pay for Twitter Blue inside 90 days of launching the brand new verification system.

Elon Musk officially owns Twitter

Elon Musk closed on his $44 billion acquisition of the fowl app on October 27, 2022. The deal got here after months of legal drama, bad memes and will-they-or-won’t-they-chaos. After sealing the deal, Musk took Twitter private and commenced clearing house. On day one, he fired former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, basic counsel Sean Edgett and head of Authorized, Belief and Security Vijaya Gadde.



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