Twitter launched Spaces, a live audio feature, in May 2021 for accounts with more than 600 followers. Later that year, in November, Dorsey stepped down again and was replaced by chief technology officer Parag Agrawal. In June 2009, state media in Iran reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had secured an easy victory.

X says that its priority is to protect and defend the user’s voice and it has guidelines about hate, which say that users “may not target others with abuse or harassment or encourage other people to do so”. It is difficult to determine exactly how many real users have chosen to leave X – or indeed if it has grown. When questioned on this, Inevitable West told me that they’d say the same about other religions. Separately, they also said they would never delete their own posts – even when they turn out to be untrue. Andi and other X accounts I’ve corresponded with believe that the changes to X are a good thing, as they now have a reach they could have never anticipated. Certainly, I’ve observed a difference in the variety of posts recommended on the “For You” feed compared with that a year ago.

Social media meets political influence

Interest in the service sharply increased after it was presented at the South by Southwest music and technology conference in Austin, Texas, in March 2007. The question that remains is what Trump’s views on this really are – and whether he will demand accountability in a different way from these sites in the future, or not at all. Allegations of bias in moderation methods have long been levelled at Twitter, both before and since Mr Musk acquired the company, alongside questions about whether the site previously limited freedom of expression. Andrew Kaung, who was previously an analyst on user safety at TikTok and has also worked at Meta, has spent years observing how these recommendation systems can be updated and changed. “What we’ve seen on X is not just about algorithms changing, it is also informed by the lack of safety mechanisms in the name of free speech,” he says. They told me when they were posting around seven times a day they could accrue a minimum of “$2,500 a month”.

App Privacy

Over the course of 2024, however, there have been another wave of alterations that appear to have transformed it further. The block function has been changed, meaning that if you block an account you won’t be protected from that profile viewing what you post. As you can imagine, many users have not been happy with Musk’s increasing efforts to disable popular features and paywall others behind the X Premium banner.

Breaking News & Social Media

That same month, it launched Moments, a curated feed of tweets organized by topic. In the the UK, the Online Safety Act will soon be enforced, under which companies will have to make commitments to the regulator Ofcom about how they will tackle illegal content and posts that are harmful to children. In Australia, politicians have gone a step further and approved plans to ban children under 16 from using social media. ​​The account has been accused of inflaming hate with posts about issues including immigration and religion.

Why did Elon Musk eliminate the Twitter name?

Supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in a series of demonstrations that provoked avatrade review a government crackdown, in which some demonstrators were injured or killed. The hashtag #IranElection became one of the most-followed topics on Twitter as Mousavi supporters coordinated protests and posted live updates from Tehran. Odeo’s employees were asked about any interesting side projects they had, and engineer Jack Dorsey proposed a short message service (SMS) on which one could share small, blog-like updates with friends. Dorsey sent the first message (“just setting up my twttr”)—called a tweet—on March 21, 2006; the completed version of Twitter debuted July 15, 2006. So, it seems, does TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who was also reported to have met Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the social media company fights plans by US authorities to ban the app.

• If you’ve been living under a rock for the last two years (or have just taken a social media break), you might have some questions about Twitter’s 2023 rebrand, X.
• And it does not allow “misleading media” like manipulated or synthetic videos that “may result in widespread confusion on public issues, impact public safety or cause serious harm”.
• Criticisms of X under Musk include concerns that hate speech and violence have been more likely to spread, especially with Musk’s move to change how the “block” and “mute” functions work.
• In March 2016, Twitter replaced its purely chronological timeline with an algorithmic feed that prioritized tweets based on popularity and user behavior.

He has now been offered a government position, leading a new advisory team called the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). Instead, in her view, it is “not a controlled social science experiment but one we’re all a part of”. ​​Earlier this month, an attack at a German market, which killed five people and injured more than 200, was widely debated on X. Much of the discussion centred around the suspect, a German resident originally from Saudi Arabia. German prosecutors have said the investigation is ongoing, but suggested one potential motive for the attack “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.

What is X? The new Twitter explained

• Andrew Kaung, who was previously an analyst on user safety at TikTok and has also worked at Meta, has spent years observing how these recommendation systems can be updated and changed.
• She previously had led advertising at NBCUniversal and stood out as one of the few major industry figures who pledged to keep running ads on Twitter after Musk acquired it, even as other advertisers pulled back.
• If you want to post pictures of the awesome flan you just bought, Instagram is much better.

Her resignation followed ongoing advertiser concerns and repeated public controversies, including antisemitic comments shared by Grok, X’s AI chatbot, just days earlier that sparked outcry. During her tenure, she defended Musk’s decisions in lawsuits and meetings with lawmakers and said most top advertisers had returned to X—though many hadn’t restored previous spending levels. In May 2023, Musk hired veteran advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as CEO, giving her responsibility for the company’s business operations while he focused on product development and technology. She previously had led advertising at NBCUniversal and stood out as one of the few major industry figures who pledged to keep running ads on Twitter after Musk acquired it, even as other advertisers pulled back. In November 2020, Twitter introduced Fleets—temporary posts that disappeared after 24 hours—modeled after Stories on Snapchat (SNAP) and Meta Platforms’ (META) Instagram and Facebook. Seeing a future for the product, Williams, Stone, and Dorsey bought out Odeo and started Obvious Corp. in October 2006 to develop it further.

To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct. These factors have led to what many have referred to as a mass “X-odus”, causing huge download spikes for competitors like Bluesky, Mastodon and (very briefly) Instagram Threads. Since then, we’ve continued to bring sci-fi ideas into reality to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems. The developer, X Corp., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.

Rise of the Twitter ‘media’

Actor Ashton Kutcher beat CNN in a widely publicized race in April 2009 to become the first Twitter user to reach one million followers. The event highlighted Twitter’s emerging role as a social network built around individual personalities as much as institutions. Although celebrity “e-watching” remained a significant draw to the service, businesses soon began sending tweets about promotions and events.

Advertising revenue fell sharply after many companies withdrew their ads, and the Twitter identity was stripped from the service. She argues that X’s algorithms now “privilege divisive and misleading rhetoric” and suggests that users who post less controversial content have found a reduction in the views. Premium profiles are entitled to more privileges and prominence – and can make money from the engagement they get from other checkmarked profiles. From October, X changed its rules so that instead of basing revenue for individual accounts around ads, it now takes into account likes, shares and comments from other Premium accounts. Although Twitter continued to grow in popularity, it still wasn’t profitable, so the company introduced new features to increase user engagement.

In response, Twitter began verifying accounts belonging to celebrities, public officials, and government agencies. Ultimately though – given how many social media giants are based in the US – it is the approach of the American government and president that could have the greatest impact. Sam Freeman, a former Meta employee who now works as an expert in Trust and Safety for a company called Cinder, believes that this will have a broader effect on other social media bosses too.

Political campaigns discovered the value of Twitter as a communication tool. Today, X is primarily run as a social media service, although Musk has said he wants to turn it into an “everything app” that can be used for shopping, financial transactions, and more, similar to China’s WeChat. They say they know of another account making “$25,000” each month – that account allegedly has 500,000 followers and posts “roughly 30” times a day. Changes – including mass layoffs and alterations to moderation policies on issues like political misinformation – started immediately. In 2022, Twitter announced Elon Musk would acquire it and that Musk was to become the company’s sole owner.

2013: From novelty to news source

In English orthography, ⟨x⟩ is typically pronounced as the voiceless consonant cluster /ks/ when it follows the stressed vowel (e.g. ox), and the voiced consonant /ɡz/ when it precedes the stressed vowel (e.g. exam). It is also pronounced /ɡz/ when it precedes a silent ⟨h⟩ and a stressed vowel (e.g. exhaust).9 Due to yod-coalescence, the sequence ⟨xi⟩ before a vowel can be pronounced /kʃ/ resulting from earlier /ksj/, e.g. in -xion(-), -xious(-). Similarly, the sequence ⟨xu⟩ can be pronounced with /kʃ/ (e.g. flexure, sexual) or /ɡʒ/ (in luxury and its derivatives). Due to NG-coalescence, the sequence ⟨nx⟩ can be pronounced /ŋz/ in anxiety. Musk has claimed to be a “free speech absolutist” in the past, but some of his decisions have had the effect of throttling posts critical of him and the changes to the platform.