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.
Law professor Kate Klonick explains what Big Tech’s Trump appeasement is really about.
Communities including r/hockey, r/NFL, r/NBA, r/MLB, and r/MLS are discussing the possibility, as reported by Awful Announcing.
Part of the reason is that X posts sometimes aren’t accessible if you’re logged out or don’t have an account. But I’ve also seen users bring up X owner Elon Musk.
[Awful Announcing]
Our tech overlords all have problems, and they want to buy the solutions.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino commended Mark Zuckerberg’s move to ditch third-party fact-checking in favor of a Community Notes-style moderation (inspired by X) onstage at CES. “It couldn’t be more validating,” Yaccarino said. “Mark and Meta realized that it’s the most effective, fastest fact checking, without bias.”
“Mark, Meta — welcome to the party,” she added.
X now includes AI-powered suggestions on certain posts. These appear as pre-written questions that users can click on. When selected, these questions are processed by xAI’s Grok chatbot, which analyzes the post and provides answers.
It’s really odd, and quite an eyesore. I also don’t think the questions are ... all that relevant for shitposts?
After a report by The Spectator that “Adrian Dittmann” is not an Elon Musk alt account, X has suspended the reporter’s account and two researchers who say they found the information and blocked linking to either article.
This, even after Musk replied to the original tweet, saying “I am Adrian Dittmann. It’s time the world knew.”
The Spectator argues that its analysis of Dittmann’s online presence shows that rather than being an invention of Elon Musk’s, Dittmann is part of a family that has been living and investing in Fiji since 2012.
You can see the Dittmann family in a YouTube video in which they’re greeted by Fiji’s President.
[The Spectator World]
Musk posted last night that the platform’s algorithm will soon “promote more informational/entertaining content” in order to “maximize unregretted user-seconds.”
He added in a separate post that X is working on ways to “adjust the content feed dynamically.”
X doesn’t let you see content unless you’re logged in, and that means many people couldn’t view an Amber Alert notification sent by the California Highway Patrol, as reported by Wired.
It appears X CEO Linda Yaccarino made an account with her competitor, Threads, within the last few days. She hasn’t posted anything or followed anyone, though.
This new account comes just a few days before she’s slated to take the stage at CES.
The iOS app is now listed on Apple’s App Store, and is currently available in beta in “Australia and a few countries” according to TechCrunch.
This confirms rumors that started circulating in November regarding X developing a standalone app for its Grok chatbot. There’s no word yet on when a version will be made available to Android users.
[App Store]
We didn’t all flock to a new platform or build on a thrilling new protocol. We went everywhere, and did everything, all at once.
The “Grok 2 + Aurora” option has vanished from Grok’s model selector menu only a day after it appeared, Engadget reports, replaced by “Grok 2 + FLUX beta” instead. The model still makes photorealistic images, but it was less willing to reproduce celebrities when I asked.
X owner Elon Musk wrote yesterday that the photorealistic and largely unrestricted model is a beta “internal image generator.”
Update: Added testing detail.
As 404 Media and others note, Elon Musk’s X has inserted itself into The Onion’s acquisition of Infowars, arguing that neither Alex Jones nor the estate handling his bankruptcy owns the associated social media accounts.
Since X simply grants a license for their use, the lawyers say that can’t be transferred without permission.
A federal judge said Friday that sanctioning Musk was unnecessary “because he already agreed to reimburse the SEC $2,923 to cover airfare for the trio of agency lawyers he stood up in Los Angeles in September,” Bloomberg writes.
The agency sought to sanction him after he ditched a testimony over his Twitter acquisition to watch a SpaceX launch.
The Elon Musk-run social media company is trying to stop a California law that would require platforms to block “materially deceptive” election content during set periods before and after voting, Bloomberg reports. X is arguing the law violates the First Amendment, pointing to “a long history” of Constitutional protections for critiques of government “that includes tolerance for potentially false speech made in the context of such criticisms.”
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X sued for allegedly driving away advertisers, says it’s leaving the platform ahead of its terms of service changes. While that lawsuit was dismissed, CCDH says X’s new terms will “ensure that future legal assaults are presided over by judges [Elon Musk] feels will be on his side,” by bringing disputes to his preferred court.
[Center for Countering Digital Hate | CCDH]
Lemon cited, among other things, the site’s new terms of service that require disputes to be brought in Texas courts, where a Tesla stock-owning judge recently recused himself from an advertiser lawsuit against X.
Lemon, who recently sued Elon Musk and X for canceling his talk show, pointed to his other accounts, like on the fast-growing Bluesky, where he posted for the first time today.
The news outlet says it will no longer post on any official Guardian accounts:
This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.
[The Guardian]
