Tag: x corp

X starts giving non-paying users the ability to make audio and video calls

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X is slowly rolling out audio and video calling to users that don’t pay for its premium subscription service that’s formerly known as Twitter Blue. Enrique Barragan, an engineer for the company, has shared the news on the platform. The company initially launched the feature for iOS users last year, giving paying subscribers the option to call other people through the app, and was a step towards making X the “everything” application Elon Musk wants it to be. Earlier this year, the capability made its way to Android devices, but the ability to make calls remained limited to Premium subscribers only.

By the end of January, Musk said that X will make audio-video calling available to everyone as soon as the company is confident that it’s robust. We’re still being asked to subscribe to X Premium to be able to make calls when we hit the phone icon in DMs, but those who get the update will be able to make calls even if they’re not a paying subscriber. The official X support page for the feature now says that all accounts are able to make and receive calls, though both parties must have been in contact via Direct Messaging at least once. In the past, it said only “Premium subscribers have the ability to make audio and video calls.”

In addition to announcing the capability’s rollout, Barragan revealed that users will now also be able to receive calls from everyone on the app if they want to. Audio and video calls were automatically switched on for us when we checked our DMs’ Settings menu, configured so that we can (thankfully) only receive calls from people we follow. We’re already seeing the “Everyone” option in there, though, ready to be picked by the most intrepid X users.

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Mariella Moon

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February 24, 2024
Elon Musk’s X adds to fog of war at outset of Israel-Hamas conflict | CNN Business

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CNN
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Misinformation has run rampant on Elon Musk’s social media platform X in the 48 hours since Hamas militants’ surprise attack on Israel, with users sharing false and misleading claims about the conflict and Musk himself pointing users to an account known for spreading misinformation.

Multiple users over the weekend shared a fake White House news release falsely claiming the US was sending billions of dollars in new aid to Israel in response. Accounts on X with hundreds of thousands of followers in total quickly spread the doctored White House press release after it appeared online on Saturday. Social media influencer Jackson Hinkle, who was among those shared the fake release, claimed it was a slap in the face to Ukraine, which has been pleading with Washington for more money to defend itself from Russia.

Musk himself added to the information chaos on Sunday by recommending X users follow the Israel-Hamas conflict by following an account known for spreading misinformation, including a fake report earlier this year of an explosion at the Pentagon.

Musk and Hinkle later deleted their posts. Musk later posted: “As always, please try stay as close to the truth as possible, even for stuff you don’t like.”

Elsewhere on X (formerly known as Twitter), an account impersonating the Jerusalem Post shared a bogus report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been hospitalized. (The account was later suspended.)

CNN has requested comment from Musk and X on the posts related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

A slew of mischaracterized videos and other posts went viral on the platform over the weekend.

One video that is purported to show Israel generals after being captured by Hamas fighter was viewed more than 1.7 million times by Monday. The video however actually shows the detention of separatists in Azerbaijan.

Another post viewed more than 500,000 times on X purported to show an airplane getting shot down with the hashtag #PalestineUnderAttack. The video is in fact a clip from the video game Arma 3, as was later noted in a “community note” appended to the post.

Community notes allow users on X to fact-check false posts on the platform. While notes were appended to both of these false posts, they often come after a false post has been viewed thousands – or in some cases millions – of times.

X has relied more heavily on community notes to moderate content since Musk laid off thousands of the company’s employees, including many responsible for detecting and addressing false claims, following his takeover of the platform last year.

Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, one of the government’s main cyber defense agencies, on Monday took to X to urge people not to spread unverified information. “[T]he rumor mill is overflowing,” the directorate wrote in Hebrew. The Anti-Defamation League also raised concerns in a statement Saturday about false and antisemitic claims being spread on the platform, including posts by a verified user falsely claiming that Israel helped to facilitate 9-11 on US soil, which have been viewed thousands of times.

The viral nature of the misinformation has alarmed experts on information operations, offering a fresh example of social platforms’ struggle to deal with a flood of falsehoods during a major geopolitical event.

“In times of war, social media becomes a propaganda battlefield; there is always an element of disinformation and exaggeration,” said Emerson Brooking, senior resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “Today, X is the main platform where this online battle plays out.”

Brooking said changes to X policy under Musk’s ownership have incentivized propagandists and scam artists. Any user can now purchase a “verification” checkmark on X by signing up for the platform’s $8 per month subscription program, and their posts are then boosted by the platform’s algorithm and eligible for monetization.

“Paid verification means that you cannot distinguish between a vetted journalist and a scam artist,” Brooking told CNN. “The for-profit ‘views’ system incentivizes accounts to impersonate news outlets and to post as frequently as possible, drawing from whatever source they can or just making things up.”

Twitter has long played a pivotal role in information sharing during conflicts, from the Arab Spring to the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine, and during previous violence in Israel and Gaza.

Viral misinformation has always existed on the platform, but it has become particularly pronounced under Musk’s stewardship, experts say.

“In the past decade, every conflict has inevitably bred a digital “fog of war,” where both sides, and their supporters, try to use social platforms to spin the narrative in their favor,” Joe Galvin, a journalist who has specialized in open-source intelligence for more than a decade, told CNN Monday.

“The volume and reach of misinformation today, though, far exceeds what we saw in the early social media era conflicts, and is exacerbated by platforms like X, which has taken the guardrails off and allows the most egregious types of disinformation to run rampant,” Galvin said.

He said other platforms that have little or no guardrails including the social media messaging app Telegram are also hotbeds of misinformation, but X is unique given Musk’s behavior.

“Even the owner of X takes part in the chaos, promoting accounts that are known to spread falsehoods to his 150 million followers. The fact is that malicious users, state-backed and otherwise, have become better at spreading falsehoods, with more sophisticated networks being built and better technology – including AI – being used. The platforms are in a perpetual state of catch-up.”

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October 9, 2023
Citizen Journalist Elon Musk Livestreams Mexican Border In Dead Space T-shirt

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South African-Canadian immigrant Elon Musk promised on September 27 that he’d test livestreaming on X (you know it as Twitter) “with some silly stuff,” he said, like a Diablo IV speedrun with no powerful Malignant Heart add-ons. On September 28, he decided to livestream the Texas-Mexico border in Eagle Pass, a five-hour drive from the border town he supposedly lives in, instead.

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With an awkward black cowboy hat sitting on his head and a black Dead Space shirt clinging to his red skin, Musk had the look of what he thinks is a real Texan (“My hat is ten years old,” he insisted. “I’ve hip-fired a 50 cal while walking”) concerned about “the border crisis.” He’s hoping his stuttering, freezing “citizen journalism” livestream will change the world, he wrote on Twitter.

But, unlike the powerful pieces of citizen journalism that provide primary-source insight into some of the world’s biggest crises, Musk did not organically capture the Texas border; he interviewed a local congressman and sheriff about “the illegals” and all the cars they’re stealing.

“All over the country,” Sheriff Randy Brown said.

“New York City is buckling under the load [of immigration] already,” Musk wrote on Twitter. This year, NYC reached its peak of homes-per-person since 1940, though many residents can’t afford to live in any of them.

Can Elon Musk solve the border crisis?

“As an immigrant to the United States,” Musk said during his stream, “I am extremely pro-immigrant. I believe that we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system.”

“But, then, by the same token, we should also not be allowing people in the country if they’re breaking the law,” continued Musk, who is currently facing criminal investigation by the Department of Justice. “That doesn’t make sense. The law is there for a reason.”

I have a personal relationship with immigration, too—both of my parents are immigrants, and throughout my life, I’ve seen the challenges that status guarantees you if you, unlike Musk, do not have a father to allegedly fund your move through emeralds. Immigrants whose lives are not studded with emeralds face a number of dehumanizing challenges once over the border, including a higher poverty rate than citizens, family separation, and a justice system built to crush them.

Immigration is a gargantuan, global and historical issue—the first “real Americans,” as we now understand that term, were law-breaking immigrants—and its many scar marks aren’t going to be massaged away by one billionaire…at least not one who keeps all his money.

“Pronouns in bio means the woke mind virus ate your brain,” Musk said on Twitter 16 minutes after writing that “Illegal immigration needs to stop.” Ugh, all his inflammatory opinions are giving me a headache. Next time, stick to Diablo IV.

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Ashley Bardhan

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September 29, 2023
X to auction off old Twitter items, from desk chairs to painting of Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar Selfie | CNN Business

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CNN
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Twitter has officially rebranded as X — so owner Elon Musk is holding a giant garage sale to purge the company’s HQ of remnants of the past.

Items up for auction range from a standard desk chair to a large bird cage welded with a Twitter logo bird and everything in between.

Since buying Twitter less than a year ago, Musk has worked to remake the social media site. He’s laid off most of the company’s employees, instituted a paywall and eliminated most account authentication, among other changes.

Interested buyers can browse through numerous “#” and “@”statues, paintings of Ellen DeGeneres’ viral 2014 Oscar selfie and Barack Obama celebrating his reelection, a reconstructed barn from Montana and numerous musical instruments.

On top of the more outlandish items, Twitter is looking to get rid of office equipment including desks, chairs and refrigerators.

The auction, run by Heritage Global Partners (HGP), opens September 12 and runs for two days in San Francisco. Viewing is available by appointment only, with all 584 items opening with a bid of 25 dollars.

Twitter also put memorabilia up for auction in January, trying to offload similar items.

X and HGP did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on the auction.

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August 2, 2023
Elon Musk blames the ADL for 60% ad sales decline at X, threatens to sue | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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X owner Elon Musk is threatening to sue the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform have torpedoed X’s advertising revenue.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk said US advertising revenue is “still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!”

Musk also claimed that since he took over the platform in October 2022, the ADL “has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic.”

“To clear our platform’s name on the matter of anti-Semitism, it looks like we have no choice but to file a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League … oh the irony!” he said.

The ADL said as a matter of policy it does not comment on legal threats. But the organization noted it recently met with X leadership, including CEO Linda Yaccarino, who Musk hired to help revive ad revenue. Yaccarino thanked ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt following the meeting last week, saying in a post on X, “A strong and productive partnership is built on good intentions and candor.”

Meanwhile, Musk, the platform’s owner, has recently liked and engaged with a series of posts criticizing the organization.

A #BanTheADL campaign has spread on X, and the ADL accused Musk of “lifting” the campaign.

“ADL is unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new,” an ADL spokesperson said.

The ADL and other similar organizations, including the Center for Countering Digital Hate, have found that the volume of hate speech on the website has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship.

In one instance, the CCDH found the daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively. The ADL said in a separate report that its data shows “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.”

Musk called the reports in May by the two watchdog groups “utterly false,” claiming that “hate speech impressions,” or the number of times a tweet containing hate speech has been viewed, “continue to decline” since his early days of owning the company when the platform saw a spike in hate speech designed to test Musk’s tolerance.

Still, two brands last month paused their ad spending on X after their advertisements ran alongside an account promoting Nazism. X suspended the account after the issue was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.

Last month, Musk sued the CCDH, accusing the nonprofit group of deliberately trying to drive advertisers away from the platform by publishing reports critical of the platform’s response to hateful content.

It specifically claims CCDH violated the platform’s terms of service, and federal hacking laws, by scraping data from the company’s platform and by encouraging an unnamed individual to improperly collect information about Twitter that it had provided to a third-party brand monitoring provider.

In response, CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed previously told CNN that much of the lawsuit, particularly its claim about the unnamed individual, “sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory to me.”

“The truth is that he’s [Elon Musk] been casting around for a reason to blame us for his own failings as a CEO,” Ahmed said, “because we all know that when he took over, he put up the bat signal to racists and misogynists, to homophobes, to antisemites, saying ‘Twitter is now a free-speech platform.’ … And now he’s surprised when people are able to quantify that there has been a resulting increase in hate and disinformation.”

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August 2, 2023
Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues California AG over content moderation law | CNN Business

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CNN
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Elon Musk’s X Corp., the parent company of the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Friday sued California’s attorney general over the state’s new content moderation law.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bill AB 587 into law last September. The law requires social media companies to post their terms of service online and submit a semiannual report to the state attorney general outlining their content moderation policies and practices. Platforms must, among other things, disclose how their automated content moderation systems work, how they define controversial content categories such as “hate speech” and “disinformation,” and the number of pieces of content flagged or removed in such categories.

Newsom’s office touted the bill as a way to improve transparency from social networks. But in a complaint filed in California’s Eastern District Court against California Attorney General Robert Bonta, X alleged that the law violates the First Amendment and California’s constitution by potentially compelling the company to moderate users’ politically charged speech.

The law “compels companies like X Corp. to engage in speech against their will, impermissibly interferes with the constitutionally-protected editorial judgments of companies such as X Corp., has both the purpose and likely effect of pressuring companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech,” the company alleged in the complaint. It added that the law could place an “undue burden” on social media companies such as Musk’s X, which is headquartered in California.

Attorney General Bonta’s press office said in an email to CNN: “While we have not yet been served with the complaint, we will review it and respond in court.”

A spokesperson for Newsom sent CNN a statement from last September in which the governor remarked on the bill.

“California will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation that threaten our communities and foundational values as a country,” Newsom said in the statement. “Californians deserve to know how these platforms are impacting our public discourse, and this action brings much-needed transparency and accountability to the policies that shape the social media content we consume every day.”

The lawsuit comes as Musk has escalated his rhetoric over what kinds of speech should be permitted on his platform, as the company’s core advertising business has taken a major revenue hit over concerns, among other things, about the approach to content moderation. Under Musk’s leadership, the platform has made several changes to its content policies, including ceasing enforcement of its Covid-19 misinformation policy and reinstating many previously banned users.

Just last month, at least two brands paused their ad spending on X after their advertisements ran alongside an account promoting Nazism. (X suspended the account after the issue was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.)

The billionaire this week threatened a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform have torpedoed X’s advertising revenue. (The ADL says it does not comment on legal threats, but CEO Jonathan Greenblatt spoke out against the #BanTheADL campaign on X.)

In Friday’s lawsuit, X Corp. alleged that requiring social media companies to report their moderation practices could pressure the platforms into “limiting or censoring constitutionally-protected content that the State finds objectionable.” It also claimed that the law could force social platforms “to take public positions on controversial and politically charged issues” and thus tailor those positions in a way it otherwise wouldn’t to avoid public scrutiny.

The law “‘compel[s]’ X Corp. to ‘speak a particular message,’ which necessarily ‘alters the content of’ its speech,’” in violation of its First Amendment rights, the company alleges in the complaint.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial on the constitutionality and legal validity of the California law.

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August 2, 2023
Elon Musk should be forced to testify on X’s ‘chaotic environment,’ US regulator tells court | CNN Business

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Washington
CNN
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Elon Musk should be forced to testify in an expansive US government probe of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, the US government said.

The government said mass layoffs and other decisions Musk made raised questions about X’s ability to comply with the law and to protect users’ privacy.

The US government’s attempt to compel Musk’s testimony is the latest turn in an investigation that predates Musk’s acquisition of X that has intensified due to Musk’s own actions, according to a court filing by the Justice Department on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission.

The court filing dated Monday cites depositions with multiple former X executives, including its former chief information security officer and former chief privacy officer, who testified that a barrage of layoffs and resignations following Musk’s $44 billion takeover may have hindered X from meeting its security obligations under a 2011 FTC consent agreement.

Twitter and its outside attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to testimony cited in the filing, there were so few employees left after the departures that anywhere from 37% to 50% of the company’s security program lacked effective management and oversight, with no one available to take responsibility for those controls. Other planned upgrades to the company’s security program were “impaired,” the filing said, citing a deposition by the former chief information security officer, Lea Kissner.

In another example, Musk personally tried to rush the rollout of Twitter Blue, the company’s paid subscription service, the filing said. That forced the company’s security team to bypass the required security and privacy checks that were a part of Twitter’s own policies and that had been mandated in the FTC order, according to the testimony of Damien Kieran, the former chief privacy officer.

The filing also alleges that Musk’s move to grant several journalists access to internal company records — access that would culminate in the so-called Twitter Files claiming to show evidence of politically motivated censorship — initially involved a plan that could potentially have led to the exposure of private user data in violation of the FTC order.

According to the filing, Musk’s plan originally called for providing access through a dedicated company laptop with “elevated privileges beyond just what a[n] average employee might have.”

“Longtime information security employees intervened and implemented safeguards to mitigate the risks,” the filing said, but even then, the former employees testified, the process raised doubts about Musk’s commitment to privacy and security.

X has moved to block Musk from being forced to testify and has asked a federal court to invalidate the entire FTC order requiring it to safeguard user privacy, accusing the FTC of asking too many questions in its probe.

But in its filing, the US government said its interest in Musk’s testimony is well-justified based on the appearance of a “chaotic environment” at X driven by “sudden, radical changes at the company” following Musk’s acquisition.

“The FTC had every reason to seek information about whether these developments signaled a lapse in X Corp.’s compliance” with the 2011 order, the filing said. Confirmed violations of the FTC order could lead to billions of dollars in fines for X, as well as potential legal ramifications for individual executives such as Musk if they are deemed personally responsible for them.

The FTC investigation traces back to bombshell allegations — raised by Twitter’s former security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko and predating Musk’s acquisition — that for years Twitter has failed to live up to its legally binding commitments to the FTC to protect user privacy and security. Those allegations were first reported last year by CNN and The Washington Post.

The investigation has proven politically charged as Musk — and his allies including Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee — have responded to the probe by publicly accusing the FTC of harassment and overreach.

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August 2, 2023
ADL says it will resume advertising on X following feud with Elon Musk | CNN Business

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CNN
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The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday said it plans to resume advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following a spat with owner Elon Musk.

Musk last month threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform had hurt X’s advertising revenue. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt pushed back on the claims, saying that while the ADL was part of a coalition of groups that called on companies to pause advertising on the platform immediately following Musk’s acquisition last year, it had not been engaged in such calls in recent months.

Musk’s statements about the group also amplified a campaign of antisemitic hate against the organization that had begun prior to Musk’s legal threat, leading to a surge of threats directed at the ADL, Greenblatt told CNN last month.

The rights group reiterated in a statement Wednesday that “any allegation that ADL has somehow orchestrated a boycott of X or caused billions of dollars of losses to the company or is ‘pulling the strings’ for other advertisers is false.”

“Indeed, we ourselves were advertising on the platform until the anti-ADL attacks began a few weeks ago,” the group said. “We now are preparing to do so again to bring our important message on fighting hate to X and its users.”

Musk responded to the ADL’s statement in a post Wednesday saying, “Thank you for clarifying that you support advertising on X.”

The statement appears to mark a resolution — for now — to weekslong tension between Musk and the ADL, which has coincided with incidents of antisemitism rising across the United States. But the group says it will continue to monitor for antisemitic content on X.

“As we have noted in our research over the past several years, X – along with other social media platforms — has a serious issue with antisemites and other extremists using these platforms to push their hateful ideas and, in some cases, bully Jewish and other users,” it said. “A better, healthier, and safer X would be a win for the world … As we do with all platforms, we will credit X as it moves in that direction, and we also will call it out when it has not.”

The ADL and other similar organizations, including the Center for Countering Digital Hate, have said in reports that the volume of hate speech on the website has grown dramatically under Musk’s stewardship. (Musk has criticized the findings.)

Two brands in August paused their ad spending on X after their advertisements ran alongside an account promoting Nazism. X suspended the account after the issue was flagged and said ad impressions on the page were minimal.

X has emphasized its new “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” policy that aims to limit the reach of so-called lawful but awful content on the platform and to protect brands from having their ads appear alongside such content. CEO Linda Yaccarino has also promoted additional brand safety controls for advertisers, including the ability to avoid having their ads show next to “targeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam, [and] drugs.”

Asked about Musk’s threats to sue the ADL in an interview last week, Yaccarino said, “I wish that would be different … We’re looking into that.” She added that the ADL should acknowledge X’s progress on addressing antisemitism.

It appears the platform may have more work to do. A search on Wednesday for Greenblatt’s name immediately surfaced multiple hateful and antisemitic tweets about the ADL leader.

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August 2, 2023
EU warns Elon Musk of ‘penalties’ for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war | CNN Business

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CNN
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European officials warned X on Tuesday that the company formerly known as Twitter appears to have been hosting misinformation and illegal content about the war between Hamas and Israel, in potential violation of the European Union’s signature content moderation law.

In a letter addressed to X owner Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, a top European commissioner, said X faces “very precise obligations regarding content moderation” and that the company’s handling of the unfolding conflict so far has raised doubts about its compliance.

As a platform subject to Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), X could face billions in fines if regulators conclude that violations have occurred. X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The warning letter highlights X’s potentially vast legal exposure as it battles a wave of bogus claims linked to the war that have been attributed to everything from fake White House press releases to false news reports and out-of-context videos from unrelated conflicts or even video games.

Much of the problematic content appears to stem from platform changes made under Musk’s supervision, Breton suggested in the letter, which he shared on X.

For example, he wrote, X announced over the weekend that it was making it easier for accounts to qualify for newsworthiness exceptions to its platform rules. The change to X’s Public Interest Policy made it so that accounts no longer require a minimum of 100,000 followers to qualify; they need only be “high profile” accounts that, as before, represent current or potential government officials, political parties or political candidates.

Removing the follower threshold and replacing it with a celebrity standard leaves it “uncertain” what content, particularly “violent and terrorist content that appears to circulate on your platform,” will be removed, Breton wrote.

Under the DSA, which became enforceable for large platforms in August, companies must also act swiftly when officials highlight content that violates European laws, which X may not be doing, Breton warned.

“We have, from qualified sources, reports about potentially illegal content circulating on your service despite flags from relevant authorities,” Breton wrote.

“I remind you that following the opening of a potential investigation and a finding of non-compliance, penalties can be imposed,” he added.

In an exchange on X, Musk replied to Breton. “Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports,” Musk wrote. “Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that that the public can see them.”

Breton posted back: “You are well aware of your users’ — and authorities’— reports on fake content and glorification of violence. Up to you to demonstrate that you walk the talk. My team remains at your disposal to ensure DSA compliance, which the EU will continue to enforce rigorously.”

The EU letter comes as misinformation about the conflict continues to spread widely across X.

On Tuesday, the investigative journalism group Bellingcat said a fake video designed to look like a BBC News report was circulating on social media.

The video falsely claimed Bellingcat found evidence that Ukraine had smuggled weapons to Hamas. Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, said the report was “100% fake.”

In an effort to make the video look like a real BBC News report, its creators used graphics almost identical to what the BBC uses in its own online video reports.

The video circulated on Telegram and was shared by at least one verified account on X.

X did not remove the fake BBC News video, but it did append a small label under the video noting it is “manipulated media.”

In response to a question about the fake video, a BBC spokesperson said, “In a world of increasing disinformation, we urge everyone to ensure they are getting news from a trusted source.”

Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC News reporter, wrote on X Tuesday, “The video is 100% fake.”

Since taking over, Musk has laid off large swaths of X’s content moderation and policy teams, prompting backlash from civil society groups, which have warned about an increased threat of misinformation and hate speech.

In what he called an effort to deter the creation of automated accounts, Musk also eliminated the traditional verification badges that once reassured users of an account’s authenticity, replacing it with a paid system that has allowed any user to receive a verification badge without undergoing an identity check. Misinformation experts have said that the move undermined users’ ability to determine the credibility of any given account, particularly during a fast-moving news event.

But Musk himself has directly contributed to the chaos, at one point sharing – and then deleting – a post recommending that users follow an account that has been known to share misinformation, including a fake report earlier this year of an explosion at the Pentagon.

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August 2, 2023
Elon Musk’s X is testing an annual fee for unverified accounts | CNN Business

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After Elon Musk hinted last month that X could start charging all users, the company (formerly known as Twitter) announced a test of such a system.

X said in a post on Tuesday that it is testing a new program called “Not a Bot” in which new users in New Zealand and the Philippines will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to post and interact with other posts.

The test will apply only to new web accounts, and the fee will be waived if users sign up for X’s $3.99 per month premium subscription service. New users in the testing region who opt out of premium and the annual subscription will only be able to read posts, watch videos and follow accounts — but not interact on the platform. Existing users will not be affected as part of the test.

The company said in the post that the program is meant to “bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount,” adding that the fee is not meant to be a profit driver.

The test comes after Musk has encouraged users to sign up for X Premium as a way of reducing spam and scam activity on the platform, suggesting that requiring credit card payments helps verify a user’s identity and creates a higher barrier to entry for inauthentic accounts. As an added incentive, premium users receive a blue checkmark, have their posts boosted by the platform’s algorithm and are eligible to receive payments as part of X’s new ad revenue share program.

It also comes after Musk made a vague statement in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month suggesting he could start charging all users. He said the company is “moving to have a small monthly payment for use of the X system” because it is “the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”

Experts, however, have said that many bad actors are more than willing and able to pay up for inauthentic accounts on the platform. In theory, a person could also pay to verify an account and then allow a computer to run it, thus effectively creating an automated (or “bot”) verified account.

X has come under fire in the past week over false and misleading claims that have been widely shared on the platform related to the Israel-Hamas war. The European Commission last week formally opened an investigation into X after a previous warning about disinformation and illegal content on its platform linked to the conflict.

X says it has removed “hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts,” taken down thousands of posts since the attack on Israel by Hamas and ramped up Community Notes, its program that allows users to fact check other users’ posts. “X is… addressing identified fake and manipulated content during this constantly evolving and shifting crisis,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a letter to EU Commissioner Thiery Breton last week.

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August 2, 2023
Elon Musk reactivates Kanye West’s Twitter account following X rebrand | CNN Business

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CNN
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X, formerly known as Twitter, has reinstated Kanye West’s account on the social media platform. West will not be able to monetize his account, and no ads will appear next to his posts, the company told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

The musician’s account was suspended in December for violating the platform’s rules on inciting violence. The suspension followed multiple antisemitic comments made by West – who has legally changed his name to Ye – including a threat to “Go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Those statements led to a swift disintegration of multiple business deals, including partnerships with Adidas and luxury fashion house Balenciaga.

Although CNN at the time was unable to determine which tweet had been the final straw, the day before his suspension West tweeted an altered image of the Star of David with a swastika inside.

Twitter has long been embroiled in questions surrounding moderation, with the platform’s CEO Elon Musk describing himself as a “free speech absolutist.” After agreeing to buy the company last October, he said Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and “be very cautious with permanent bans.”

But after West was suspended, Musk tweeted “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence.”

In April, Twitter’s safety team launched a new content enforcement strategy called “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach,” which focused on “restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

This approach, in part, requires the team to “proactively prevent ads from appearing adjacent to content” labeled as violative.

In an update earlier this month, the safety team reported that these labeled tweets “receive 81% less reach or impressions” than non-restricted ones, and that “more than 99.99% of Tweet impressions are from … content that does not violate our rules.”

Twitter’s Violent Speech Policy prohibits inciting and glorifying violence, wishing harm on other people, and threatening others. But it makes some exceptions, including for “figures of speech, satire, or artistic expression when the context is expressing a viewpoint rather than instigating actionable violence or harm.”

“We make sure to evaluate and understand the context behind the conversation before taking action,” the policy states, adding that if a user believes their account was wrongfully suspended, they can submit an appeal.

It’s not clear whether West submitted an appeal, or if something else prompted his account’s reactivation. The musician has yet to post on the platform. CNN has reached out to Twitter and a representative for West but has not received a response.

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July 30, 2023
Twitter Rebrands To X, Replaces Iconic Bird Logo

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Twitter has officially rebranded to X after owner Elon Musk changed its iconic bird logo Monday, saying the change was to “embody the imperfections in us all that make us unique.” What do you think?

“Now where am I supposed to see birds?”

Edwin Foster, Gasket Replacer

This Week’s Most Viral News: June 2, 2023

“You have to respect a man who refuses to have a good idea.”

Tyler Ihnat, Optical Illusionist

“It takes a true visionary to realize that X is more computery than a bird.”

Jessica Twiss, Chrome Plater

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July 25, 2023
‘X’ removed after being installed atop company headquarters following Twitter’s rebrand | CNN Business

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CNN
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Officials from the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection on Monday morning observed that the new “X” on top of the building formerly known as Twitter’s headquarters was being dismantled, according to Patrick Hannan, the department’s spokesman.

The news comes after the company was issued a notice of violation (NOV) Friday for work without a permit for the new sign, which flashes at night, that adorns the building.

“Over the weekend, the Department of Building Inspection and City Planning received 24 complaints about the unpermitted structure, including concerns about its structural safety and illumination. This morning, building inspectors observed the structure being dismantled. A building permit is required to remove the structure but, due to safety concerns, the permit can be secured after the structure is taken down,” Hannan said in an email to CNN.

“The property owner will be assessed fees for the unpermitted installation of the illuminated structure. The fees will be for building permits for the installation and removal of the structure, and to cover the cost of the Department of Building Inspection and the Planning Department’s investigation,” he added.

CNN has reached out to the company formerly known as Twitter for comment.

– CNN’s Ramishah Maruf contributed to this report

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April 12, 2021
Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as X | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
—

In a radical rebranding, Twitter owner Elon Musk has replaced Twitter’s iconic bird logo with X.

Musk made the shock announcement of his plans early Sunday. By Monday morning US time, he tweeted that X.com now points to Twitter.com.

“Interim X logo goes live later today,” he wrote, shortly before sharing a photo of Twitter’s headquarters lit up by a giant new X.

The Twitter website now features the same logo, while the familiar blue bird is gone.

Previously, Musk said he was bidding “adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”

Twitter

(TWTR), founded in 2006, has used its vivid, globally recognized blue bird emblem for more than a decade.

The renaming could be seen as something of a brand overhaul “Hail Mary” for the company: Musk in recent months has repeatedly warned that Twitter, facing steep losses in ad revenue, was on the edge of bankruptcy.

Increasing the pressure, earlier this month rival social media platform Threads launched from Facebook

(FB) parent Meta. It surpassed 100 million user sign-ups in its first week.

Twitter had 238 million active users prior to being taken private by Musk in October 2022.

One of the world’s richest men, Musk was once best known for his innovative efforts through companies SpaceX and Tesla

(TSLA) to launch rockets and build electric cars.

Now, many of the headlines he makes are for his eccentric remarks on his personal Twitter account – often sharing conspiracy theories and getting into public spats on the social media platform.

Musk overhauled the site after acquiring it for $44 billion in late October, then followed with mass layoffs, disputes over millions of dollars allegedly owed in severance and Musk’s note to employees that remaining at the company would mean “working long hours at high intensity.” He wrote: “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

The upheaval prompted organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD, to pressure brands to rethink advertising on Twitter.

The groups pointed to the mass layoffs as a key factor in their thinking, citing fears that Musk’s cuts would make Twitter’s election-integrity policies effectively unenforceable, even if they technically remain active.

Musk also began overseeing controversial policy changes which led to frequent service disruptions at Twitter and upended his own reputation in the process.

In June, Musk named Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal marketing executive, CEO of the company.

She commented on the name change on Twitter Sunday afternoon: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

As the new venture begins, it faces challenges. Musk recently disclosed that the platform still has a negative cash flow due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue and heavy debt loads.

Criticizing the exit, or pause, of such Twitter advertisers as General Mills

(GIS), Macy’s

(M) and some car companies that compete with Tesla, Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist” and said he wanted to buy Twitter to bolster users’ ability to speak freely on the platform.

Musk explained his approach to free speech by saying: “Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? And if that is the case, then we have free speech.”

He added that Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and that the platform would aim to allow all legal speech. Many users have worried that could mean a rise in hate speech.

Meanwhile, the initial frenzy around rival Threads appears to have come back to earth, especially as it has been plagued with spam and lacks several user-friendly features Twitter, or, now X, offers.

Adam Mosseri, who is overseeing the Threads launch for Meta, has hinted at plans to add features such as a desktop version of the app, a feed of only accounts a user follows and an edit button.

Its ability to draw advertising support is, as yet, unproven.

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April 12, 2021
Twitter’s rebrand is the next stage in Elon Musk’s vision for the company. But does anyone want it? | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
—

Elon Musk’s move over the weekend to rebrand Twitter and replace its iconic bird logo with an X is just the latest step in his effort to make over the billionaire’s longtime favorite platform in his image.

When Musk bought Twitter late last year, he laid out a vision for an “everything” app called X, where users could communicate, shop, consume entertainment and more. Last June — prior to his takeover — Musk told Twitter employees that the platform should be more like China’s WeChat, where he said users “basically live on” the app because “it’s so usable and helpful to daily life.”

The vision for the rebrand may go all the way back to Musk’s creation of the original X.com in 1999, which Musk hoped would be an all-in-one financial platform and which eventually became PayPal.

Despite Musk’s longstanding ambitions — and the heightened stakes since he shelled out $44 billion to purchase the social network — ditching Twitter’s branding in service of a future super app is a significant risk.

Twitter still has a long way to go if Musk wants to build out the kind of services WeChat is known for — everything from ordering groceries and booking yoga classes to paying bills and chatting with friends. And that’s not to mention the financial and competitive challenges the company faces merely existing in its current form, let alone launching a massive expansion. It’s also not clear how much demand there is for such a super app outside of China, given that efforts by other platforms to simply sell users on added shopping features have been slow to take off.

“While Musk’s vision is to turn ‘X’ into an ‘everything app,’ this takes time, money, and people -— three things that the company no longer has,” Mike Proulx, research director and vice president at Forrester, said in an investor note. By ditching Twitter’s name, Proulx added, Musk “will have singlehandedly wiped out over fifteen years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon,” leaving him to start fresh at a precarious time for the company.

The X branding has already started taking over Twitter.

Musk — who bought Twitter with a company called X Corp. — tweeted on Sunday that X.com now redirects to Twitter. (Musk reportedly bought the X.com domain back from PayPal in 2017.)

On Sunday night, the new stylized X logo was projected onto the company’s headquarters. And by Monday, the bird logo had been replaced by an X on Twitter’s website. Musk even told followers that tweets should instead be called “x’s.”

On Sunday, CEO Linda Yaccarino seemed to confirm Musk’s vision for the company. “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity — centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking — creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino said in a tweet.

Walter Isaacson, the legendary tech journalist who has been shadowing Musk to write his biography, tweeted on Sunday that Musk told him even before the Twitter acquisition that he wanted to use the social platform to fulfill his original, decades-old vision for X.com. “I am very excited about finally implementing X.com as it should have been done, using Twitter as an accelerant!” Musk texted Isaacson at 3:30 a.m. one morning last October, just ahead of his takeover, according to the writer.

On Monday, Musk explained the move in a tweet saying, “The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video.”

“In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world,” Musk said. “The Twitter name does not make sense in that context.”

(The rebrand also seems to be a continuation of a sort of obsession with the letter “X,” which also features in the name of one of Tesla’s cars, the Model X; the name of his rocket company, SpaceX; the name of his new artificial intelligence firm, xAI; and the name of two of his children, X Æ A-Xii and Exa Dark Sideræl.)

In recent weeks, Twitter has quietly begun its effort to build out a payments business called Twitter Payments — the company was granted money transmitter licenses in four US states since last month, including Arizona and Michigan. Musk has discussed his desire to promote longer videos on Twitter. And he’s tried to shift Twitter’s business model away from advertising by allowing users to pay for verification, a strategy that has resulted in some chaos but only a limited number of actual subscriptions.

Still, Musk faces obvious hurdles to turning Twitter into a fully-developed super app. Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has fired around 80% of its staff, scared away many of the advertisers that made up its core user base and frustrated many of its users with controversial policy decisions. And now, Twitter faces steep competition from Meta’s rival app Threads, which launched to stunning success, although its usage has petered off slightly in recent days.

Musk last week also said that Twitter still has negative cash flow because of a 50% decline in ad revenue.

Even if Musk does add new features to Twitter, many US tech platforms have struggled to succeed in imitating WeChat. Deloitte said in a report published last year that Western markets are unlikely to see “a single, dominant super-app like WeChat in the near term” because the services such apps would aim to bundle together, such as digital payments and ride hailing, already “have too many well-established players.”

A 2019 effort by the social media giant then known as Facebook to create its own digital currency and payments system that the company said would make it easier to buy things online officially flopped last year following intense regulatory scrutiny. And both TikTok and Instagram have reportedly scaled back their ambitions to incorporate e-commerce onto their platforms after their shopping features failed to gain significant traction with users.

And until Musk rolls out significant changes to the platform, observers of the company say ditching Twitter’s well-known brand is a risky move.

“To rebrand without significant new features seems like a desperate attempt for attention,” especially in the wake of Meta’s launch of Threads, said Joshua White, assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University. “This is akin to buying Coke and changing the bottle and name without changing the formula — likely a mistake.”

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April 12, 2021
Meta, Microsoft, hundreds more own trademarks to new Twitter name | CNN Business

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Reuters
—

Billionaire Elon Musk’s decision to rebrand Twitter as X could be complicated legally: companies including Meta and Microsoft already have intellectual property rights to the same letter.

X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it is a candidate for legal challenges – and the company formerly known as Twitter could face its own issues defending its X brand in the future.

“There’s a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” said trademark attorney Josh Gerben, who said he counted nearly 900 active U.S. trademark registrations that already cover the letter X in a wide range of industries.

Musk renamed social media network Twitter as X on Monday and unveiled a new logo for the social media platform, a stylized black-and-white version of the letter.

Owners of trademarks – which protect things like brand names, logos and slogans that identify sources of goods – can claim infringement if other branding would cause consumer confusion. Remedies range from monetary damages to blocking use.

Microsoft since 2003 has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms – whose Threads platform is a new Twitter rival – owns a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter “X” for fields including software and social media.

Meta and Microsoft likely would not sue unless they feel threatened that Twitter’s X encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter, Gerben said.

The three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Meta itself drew intellectual property challenges when it changed its name from Facebook. It faces trademark lawsuits filed last year by investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX, and settled another over its new infinity-symbol logo.

And if Musk succeeds in changing the name, others still could claim ‘X’ for themselves.

“Given the difficulty in protecting a single letter, especially one as popular commercially as ‘X’, Twitter’s protection is likely to be confined to very similar graphics to their X logo,” said Douglas Masters, a trademark attorney at law firm Loeb & Loeb.

“The logo does not have much distinctive about it, so the protection will be very narrow.”

Insider reported earlier that Meta had an X trademark, and lawyer Ed Timberlake tweeted that Microsoft had one as well.

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April 12, 2021
TikTok brings in text posts to rival Elon Musk’s X | CNN Business

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London
CNN
—

TikTok will now allow users to post text-only content for the first time in a challenge to Elon Musk’s beleaguered X, formerly known as Twitter.

Announcing the new post format Monday, the video streaming platform said it would broaden “options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity.”

“With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine,” the company said in a statement.

Users are now able to share “stories, poems, recipes, and other written content,” which can be customized by adding sound, stickers and background colors, among other features.

In perhaps the most direct challenge to the X platform, text posts on TikTok will allow users to tag other accounts and add hashtags that relate to trending topics.

The latest move by TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, may prove to be another knock for Musk, whose takeover of X in October has resulted in mass layoffs, a huge drop in advertising revenue and controversial changes to the platform’s verification policy.

Earlier this month, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, launched Threads, a rival social media site. Threads surpassed 100 million user sign-ups in its first week.

Musk re-branded Twitter to X Monday, giving the platform a new website domain and logo.

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April 12, 2021