Twitter was never the largest social network, but it remained one of the most influential as a home to celebrities, journalists, and influencers of all sorts and the go-to network for breaking news. Since Elon Musk purchased it, Twitter’s employee count has dropped by more than half, advertisers have tightened budgets, and it’s charging money for access to verified checkmarks and Tweetdeck. Oh, and now it’s called X instead of Twitter.
Elon Musk’s SpaceXSI (yes, really) is launching new plans that combine X Premium, Grok, and Cursor. “The X Subscription” plans start from $8 monthly, climbing to $200 for an Ultra tier with more features and usage. Current subscribers have the option of sticking with their current plan or switching over.
[SpaceXSI]
Despite multiple Ukrainian strikes hitting Yandex servers in Russia, a thread by antibot4navalny, which has long tracked state-sponsored social media campaigns and troll farms, explains that the Cloudflare “Bot Traffic” chart many people have cited is really about automated web crawlers operated by Yandex accessing the web.
It’s not connected to “bots” posting on social media, and Russian bot/crawler traffic overall continues to be about the same as normal. Still, are you noticing any difference in the posts and comments you’ve seen online?
Following backlash, YouTube posted on X that when the trailer was “submitted as an ad, it was temporarily restricted by our system. Following review the ad has been cleared to run.” Meta spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said, “This was an error,” and will now run the ads.
Update September 26th: Added statement from Meta.
YouTube, TikTok, and Meta have all apparently rejected the trailer for Alex Gibney’s documentary, scheduled to hit theaters on October 9th. It’s not surprising that X has refused to take distributor Bleecker Street’s calls given its owner’s notoriously thin skin. But as The Hollywood Reporter notes:
The unwillingness of platforms to accept even paid advertising is sure to raise concerns about free speech and the dwindling number of companies that control many of the platforms in this country — and ironically provide a proof-text for the very point the film is coming to make. Gibney’s doc is a four-hour look at a title character who attempts to control the conversation in various ways, including with alleged suppressions on X, which he bought in 2022.
Update September 26th: Both YouTube and Meta will now reportedly run the ads.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
xAI’s original lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI alleged “anticompetitive conduct” over Apple and OpenAI’s deal to integrate ChatGPT into iOS. Monday’s dismissal filing, reported on by Reuters, specifies that X and SpaceXAI “do not seek to dismiss its claims against” OpenAI.
After going offline in August because of “cease and desist letters” sent by X, the website for the open source project has an update dated September 7th saying that “Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue.” XCancel, which uses Nitter, is also back.
X sued the startup after it attempted to cancel its ownership of the “Twitter” and “Tweet” trademarks, claiming they had been “abandoned.” But a preliminary ruling from April suggests “X seemed to have given up intellectual property claims,” leading Operation Bluebird’s co-founders to launch the Twitter.now platform, as reported by Ars Technica.
The platform is currently available in early access to “founders” who pay $20.
[Ars Technica]
The GitHub page for the open source project says that, on Monday, “cease and desist letters were sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository.” X claims Nitter unlawfully used X’s API, TechCrunch reports.
Nitter was used by the service XCancel, which has also posted a message about receiving a cease and desist letter from X.
From a new “Under the Hood” page in settings that X is piloting, you will be able to download aggregate stats for the past month on “labels that can affect post visibility in the X algorithm” that are applied to your posts and account, according to a screenshot published by TechCrunch.
X has also open sourced the “For You” algorithm.
Elon Musk’s X Corp and the World Federation of Advertisers are ending their long-running legal fight. In 2024, Musk accused the industry group of illegally boycotting X through its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative, which set standards to prevent ads from appearing next to harmful content. GARM has since been disbanded. A judge dismissed Musk’s lawsuit in March.
X says the new version of the app, rolling out starting today, is “faster, smoother, and more reliable,” with better scrolling, loading, and notifications. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, called it “one of the largest engineering projects in the company’s history,” but warned users that “There are still some rough edges.”
Along with his usual morning tweets in support of right-wing politics, against certain immigrants to the US, and boosting data centers, the sometimes-trillionaire writes, “Once we have completed our review for security vulnerabilities, we will make the entire codebase of 𝕏 open source, with no exceptions.” (He didn’t mention how Grok Build had apparently made exposing your code a little too easy.)
He also tweeted separately about its mysteriously busted algorithm, saying that it “…barraging you with similar content due to a few likes” is another problem.
Judge Sparkle Sooknanan approved the $1.5 million pocket-change settlement with the Fed over his violation of disclosure rules in connection with the purchase of Twitter. She said she had limited authority:
“Whether the Executive Branch (through the SEC) has done enough to hold Mr. Musk to account for his alleged violation is, like many other issues, for our citizenry to decide at the ballot box.”
According to Elon Musk, the platform will be releasing a new feature for Community Notes that sends you a DM if “a post you interacted with is corrected.” I can see the potential utility, though you’re putting trust in the Community Note actually being correct. It’s also unclear when this may launch.
Walk softly and carry a Fender Telecaster.
As reported by CNBC, the New York Times, and others, trading commenced at a price 11 percent above the $135 IPO price, but lower than the $175 shown in some earlier indications. It’s already spiked as high as $167, before falling back to $155. As long as the share price remains above $138, that is enough to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
It also gives SpaceX a market cap of over $2 trillion, making it currently the 6th most valuable public company in the US.
iOS users now have the option to “React with Video” under the reposting symbol on the X app, allowing you to respond to clips and static images by recording yourself. You can choose between green screen, split screen, or picture-in-picture recording styles.
The biggest public offering ever is financial nihilism’s final form.
Unverified users only need to worry if they’re making more than 50 original posts and 200 replies per day, compared to the previous limit of 2,400 daily posts. This move is presumably trying to tackle bot accounts, since 50 posts is far more than most people will use.
We also discover that Nadella has no idea if Altman and Musk talked about Musk’s mean Microsoft/OpenAI tweets. As a side note, we are referring exclusively to “Twitter” and “tweets” even for posts after the X rebrand.
Following a missed April court date, French prosecutors have formally opened a criminal investigation into Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino over the platform’s role in spreading sexualized AI deepfakes and illegal content, as reported by CNBC.
While Elon Musk has settled his Twitter case with the SEC, nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters says the FTC has ended a “retaliatory” investigation about whether it worked with advertisers to boycott Elon Musk’s website:
…the FTC ultimately submitted to a legally binding settlement agreement with Media Matters, withdrawing its blatantly retaliatory demands and committing to forgo ever reissuing or issuing a substantially similar Civil Investigative Demand to Media Matters.
The FTC also stated — in writing — that Media Matters is not the target of any investigation and that any similar future litigation would occur in D.C.
The platform claims the app has “no tracking” and is “fully end-to-end encrypted.” Benji Taylor, who leads design at X, says the launch is “just the beginning of what we’re building for messaging.”
