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.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is worried about X Money, Elon Musk’s upcoming payment platform, and the risks it poses to consumers and the financial system. She’s probably right to worry, but the solution might have been in front of us the whole time:
GHollister:
Have you tried not using X Money? That is my plan, seems to be working ok.
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Digital privacy non-profit the Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced it’s leaving X, citing a sharp decline in views for its posts. With EFF off the platform, some commenters agree with the organization’s thinking.
Krankor:
eff x, I agree
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Viral posts about insider trading don’t have to be true to be valuable.
Elon Musk said it was “war” in 2024, as X filed its antitrust lawsuit against World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) members over their Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative.
Now a judge has dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought again:
…if facts existed that GARM operated at an X competitor’s behest to put X out of business or that GARM advertisers sought to unfairly exclude competing advertisers from doing business, X would have pleaded those facts. The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court
therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice.
Musk’s lawyers are trying to overturn the recent verdict that found his self-described “stupid tweets” were liable for losses incurred by Twitter investors, pointing to an emoji reaction to a post on LinkedIn from the account of Judge Kathaleen McCormick. In a filing of her own, Reuters reports McCormick said she hadn’t read the post, and that “I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally.”
“I am hesitant to foist being public on SpaceX, especially given the long term nature of our mission.”
The in-development feature reported by @nima_owji shows a toggle that allows users to disclose synthetically made or manipulated content. The move may be in response to India ordering social platforms to embrace provenance systems like C2PA, a standard that X abandoned after Elon Musk stepped in.
Europe’s privacy watchdog has opened yet another investigation into the millions of sexualized images, some of children, produced and shared on the platform last month. It joins the EU’s DSA effort already underway, whatever France is doing, and a few more in the UK.
The Tech Transparency Project identified several Iranian government agencies and officials enjoying the perks of X Premium accounts. Normally, Premium requires a paid subscription, which could violate US sanctions. Suspiciously, when Wired flagged some of those accounts to X, they were stripped of their blue checkmarks:
X did not respond to a request for comment, but within hours of WIRED flagging several X accounts belonging to Iranian officials, their blue checkmarks were removed. The rest of the accounts identified by TTP but not shared with X continue to display a blue checkmark.
Presumably this tweet was timed before Elon Musk’s Grok posted an estimated 3 million sexualized images onto the platform, including 23,000 of children, averaging an estimated 190 images per minute over an 11-day sample period:
X supports #SaferInternetDay and remains committed to protecting children on the platform. We maintain zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation—including AI-generated content—and enforce strict policies to keep minors safe and ensure a positive experience for everyone.
The removals — which follow the Trump administration’s previous data purging efforts — target all posts prior to the president returning to office in January 2025, with a goal to “limit confusion on US government policy,” A spokesperson told NPR that the department’s X accounts “are one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals.”
Maybe combining Musk’s companies is really about space AI data centers. But reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicate that SpaceX’s IPO pursuit includes a push to have major index providers find a way around the usual waiting periods before they’ll add newly listed companies.
I used to compare Elon Musk to an old boss of mine who would spin up a company division every time he found a new hobby, but this might be just as apt:
ElectricOrchestra613:
Elon Musk’s constant new ventures and subsequent mergers just feels like the corporate equivalent of creating a new email every time you want to sign up for a free trial.
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The Paris Prosecutor’s office announced that it’s abandoning X after French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network on Tuesday, part of a year-long investigation into whether X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. Here’s a machine translation of its departing post:
“A search is being carried out at the French premises of X by the cybercrime unit of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, together with @CyberGEND and @Europol, as part of the investigation opened in January 2025. The Paris public prosecutor’s office is leaving X. Find us on Lkd and Insta.”
While X has long allowed NSFW images, The Washington Post reports that the platform’s content moderation filters couldn’t handle the estimated millions of sexualized deepfakes of real women and children being generated by Grok.
“For instance, child sexual abuse material was typically rooted out by matching it against a database of known illegal images. But an AI edited image wouldn’t automatically trigger these warnings.”
After suffering multiple issues last month, X is down again to kick off February. Downdetector and NetBlocks both confirmed the outage. Users are reporting that the most recent posts they’re able to see are from an hour ago.
After an extended outage on Friday, the site formerly known as Twitter is tossing around error messages and/or entirely failing to load posts once again. Downdetector and NetBlocks are tracking the outage, and if there are any updates, we’ll follow up with them.
How Elon Musk and xAI are putting a nail in the coffin of content moderation.
Similar to starter packs on Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon, X’s take on the feature will provide you with lists of accounts to follow based on what they post about, such as sports, video games, food, and more. Starter packs will roll out to all users in “the coming weeks.”
The solution is using Bluesky, of course. Naturally, a user with a blue check next to their name told Grok to put a bikini on the butterfly and the AI did — which seems like an even stronger advertisement for Bluesky than the one Bluesky itself posted.
Ofcom says the probe will establish whether X has failed to comply with Online Safety Act obligations, over concerns its Grok AI chatbot is generating sexualized deepfakes of adults and minors. The investigation is “a matter of the highest priority,” and may result in hefty fines or even X being banned in the UK.
X’s deepfake porn feature clearly violates app store guidelines. Why won’t Apple and Google pull it?
