Earlier today, X appeared to removed the Twitter app from the App Store on the best Macs. The official Mac app was abandoned, stuck with a lack of updates and rebranding since the changing of Twitter to X in 2023.

After removing the Twitter app, a pop-up in the app instructed users to use the X iPad app on their Macs. But you may want to hold off on doing so.

A number of users are reporting that their accounts are getting suspended, after using the X iPad app on their Mac. One Reddit user shared that their X account got suspended as soon as they logged into the iPad app on their Mac.

For anyone that isn't sure, developers can allow their iPhone or iPad apps to be installed on Mac. While X didn't allow this before, the iPad app can now be installed on Macs.

Wait, what happened to the Twitter app for Macs?

Many people, myself included, stuck to using the older Twitter for Mac app, as it still runs well, carries the old branding, and doesn't display ads. But those days appear to be officially over, as the Twitter app for Mac now appears gone for good.

As noted by one developer, Vedant, on X (ironically), the absence of the Twitter for Mac app from the Mac App Store suggests that X, formerly known as Twitter, has finally delisted the outdated software. Up until now, X has remained silent on the app being removed, so it's unclear if this is permanent or not. It is possible that the Mac app has been removed to be rebranded. But the more likely scenario is that it has simply been killed off.

More from iMore

• Nowhere to hide — X Premium checkmarks can no longer be hidden, even if you never asked for yours
• Elon Musk announces X update he claims FaceTime can't match
• How to delete your Twitter account

Last year, Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X. While nobody actually uses the new name, it was rebranded across all platforms, except the Mac app. The official Mac app was abandoned, stuck with a lack of updates and rebranding since the rebranding of Twitter to X in 2023.

Many people, myself included, have stuck to using the older Mac app on the best Macs, as it still runs well, carries the old branding, and doesn't display ads. But those days appear to be officially over, as the Twitter app for Mac now appears gone for good.

As noted by one developer, Vedant, on X (ironically), the absence of the Twitter for Mac app from the Mac App Store suggests that X, formerly known as Twitter, has finally delisted the outdated software.

Despite its removal, users who had previously installed the app can still use it. At the moment, I can still run the app on my Mac Studio. But some are reporting that the app is now bricked when they try to use it. Either way, the future of its functionality remains uncertain, as X could permanently disable the app at any time.

How can Mac users access X now?

With the official Twitter for Mac app no longer available, X now prompts users to "upgrade" to the iPad version of X, which has recently been made compatible with Apple Silicon Macs.

This change is a mixed bag for users: for users with Apple Silicon Macs, the transition to the iPad version may offer a functional alternative. For users with older Macs, they will be left without an app option and will need to access X through a web browser.

It's worth noting that the iPad app for X offers an arguably worse experience. Newer branding aside, it shows ads throughout X, as you'll find on other platforms. While that is the norm for the social platform these days, it's a disappointment for anyone who enjoyed using the old Mac app. You can, of course, subscribe to X Premium to remove ads.

More from iMore

• Nowhere to hide — X Premium checkmarks can no longer be hidden, even if you never asked for yours
• Elon Musk announces X update he claims FaceTime can't match
• How to delete your Twitter account

If you're using X (formerly Twitter), then the company's Grok AI might be trained on your content.

That's thanks to a recently activated setting that automatically opts users into allowing their data to be used to train the AI chatbot.

The wording of the warning is as follows:

"To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes. This also means that your interactions, inputs, and results may also be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes."

It's perhaps a little deeper into the settings than most are likely to venture - leading to some consternation online.

How to opt out of X's Grok training

If you'd like to opt out of your data being used to train Grok, you'll find that setting in the web version of X - but you won't find it on the app just yet, much to the dismay of many users on the platform.

Here's how to prevent your posts being used to feed Grok information.

• Open up X on your computer
• Click 'More' (the three dots on the sidebar)
• Click 'Settings and Privacy', then 'Privacy and Safety'
• Select Grok, and untick the box the says "Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning"

Away from Grok, Apple recently pledged to help enforce voluntary AI safety guidelines along with the likes of OpenAI, Meta, and Amazon.

Apple's own suite of AI features, dubbed Apple Intelligence, is expected to start hitting devices later this year.

More from iMore

• Already downloaded the iOS 18 public beta? Try out these 5 new features right now!
• Buying an iPhone in India? Here's why you'll be able to get it for less
• I don't want an iPhone Slim, I want my iPhone mini back

This morning, as with every morning, I had my morning scroll of X. I like to catch up on what's been happening while I've been asleep, as most of the people I follow have been active in the hours that I have not. There's a magazine I like to read from Japan that was released today, for example — and all my favorite artists featured in the magazine are posting images on X of their work featured in this month's issue.

The moment I click on an image, however, I am not taken to a larger version of the image, but to the electoral commission site of the UK political party, Reform UK, an organization I have zero interest in.

• iPhone deals: Verizon | AT&T | Mint Mobile

What's going on?

First, some information about how I suffered the bug. I use an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and the official X app. The image was from a Japanese X account, and had nothing to do with the upcoming UK election. By all accounts, I shouldn't have been taken to the Reform UK site — so why was I?

I'm not the only user affected by the bug. Check out all the other users reporting the 'twitter link bug', and how they're being taken to unrelated links when clicking images and other shortcuts. Interestingly, while I can replicate the bug reliably just by tapping around various images, the moment you go to screen record, it seems to completely stop.

We reached out to X about the bug and only received the typically Musk-like auto-response of "Busy now, please check back later." Ever since the billionaire has taken over the site, bugs have cropped up all over the place, from extremely x-rated porn bots to frequent outages. X might not die overnight, but it's looking less and less a viable platform to keep using.

I managed to get to the image I wanted in the end — but only after attempting to record my experience.

More from iMore

• Elon Musk humiliated with Community Note on his own X post

Following the news that X (ye olde Twitter) has started to give some people free access to the X Premium subscription and blue checkmark whether they want it or not, the social network has started to roll out another tweak. And it isn't going to go down well with those who never wanted that checkmark in the first place.

While X had previously allowed people to hide the blue checkmark, preventing people from knowing that they were an X Premium user, that option is now being removed. As a result, those who have been given X Premium but had no intention of paying for it for whatever reason now have no way to hide it.

The upshot? Anyone who would prefer people not to think they've paid for X Premium can no longer hide their status, although it isn't yet known why that move has been made.

Everything check(mark)s out

The Verge reports that some users have started to receive a notification that warns them they can no longer hide the checkmark after making the option available to users last summer. X seemingly understood that people might not want others to think they gave it money, but something has clearly changed.

Elon Musk's ownership of X, nee Twitter, has proven controversial for all manner of reasons and that has led some to refuse to pay to be verified. But X started giving people a free X Premium account if they met certain follower criteria last week, leaving some recipients to hide the checkmark entirely. That's no longer an option.

As for why this change has been made, we can only assume that X wants to make the X Premium subscription seem more enticing — and the more blue checkmarks people see, the more likely they are to want one.

More from iMore

• Elon Musk and Tim Cook "resolve" Twitter's App Store dispute
• Elon Musk announces X update he claims FaceTime can't match
• Elon Musk is destroying X (Twitter), and now we have the proof

It's been quite the year for X, the company that was formerly known as Twitter — a name that many still continue to use despite the branding having long been removed from the social network's website and apps. Twitter was bought by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk back in November of 2023, and around a year later it's fair to say that the last 12 months have been eventful ones.

How eventful? Somewhat predictably, Musk buying Twitter caused quite a stir in late 2022 and that was before he fired a chunk of its workforce, changed its name, and set about adding new features including an X Premium+ subscription that is designed to bring in some much-needed recurring revenue. 

But with X now being a private company it's difficult to see just how things are really going. It's no secret that advertisers have left X in droves since Musk's recent antisemitic outburst and that's something he says could kill the company. But even if Musk decided to ditch X before that happens, he'll struggle to recoup his money. In fact, new analysis claims that Musk should expect to take quite the hit if he did try to sell a company that is now thought to be worth a staggering 72% less than it was when he bought it.

Hey big spender

This is according to new numbers shared by Fidelity, an outfit that revalues private shares albeit on a one-month lag, as noted by Axios. That means that things might have gotten worse for Musk, although it's also possible they have improved.

According to an Axios report based on Fidelity's figures, "X is worth 71.5% less than at the time of purchase, according to a new disclosure that runs through the end of November 2023." That figure is made up of a 10.7% fall in November, around the same time as Musk's infamous "go F*** yourself" message to the same advertisers that could ultimately tank his company. For comparison, the same November period saw Meta's stock rise almost 5% and Snap's shares grow by more than 38%.

It's important to remember that it isn't clear just how much inside information Fidelity might have and Musk is certainly not sharing data with anyone. Axios also points out that "Fidelity began marking down its Twitter shares the first month after Musk's buyout" although it did at least keep its share value stable during some 2023 months. In fact, some also saw that value increase.

Interesting times ahead

Whether or not Musk's X post was antisemitic or not — he claims the latter — there is no denying that X advertisers are spooked. And while the social network continues to add new features like video and voice calling, it isn't clear just how popular any of its subscription offerings are.

Fold into the mix the fact that Meta's own Threads social network recently launched in the European Union for the first time and X is under threat the likes of which it hasn't yet had to compete with.

As divisive as Elon Musk is, he hasn't gotten to where he is today without knowing how to make money. But with increasing competition and a growing dislike of the X brand and service as a whole, a huge public relations spin is going to be needed if the company is going to push on. Courting advertisers is surely at the top of the list of things that need to happen, likely shortly followed by stopping the company's owner from discussing the entities that could shutter it live on stage.

More from iMore

• Elon Musk is destroying X (Twitter), and now we have the proof
• Steve Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson is trying his hand at Elon Musk
• Go f*** yourself,' Elon Musk tells the advertisers he says X can't live without

The European Commission has opened formal proceedings against Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, over claims it may have breached the bloc's Digital Services Act in several key areas. 

In a press release early Monday, the EC stated, "The European Commission has opened formal proceedings to assess whether X may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to risk management, content moderation, dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers."

The EC says that "On the basis of the preliminary investigation conducted so far, including on the basis of an analysis of the risk assessment report submitted by X in September, X's Transparency report published on 3 November, and X's replies to a formal request for information" it has decided to open a formal investigation. Specifically, the release notes "the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel." 

European Commission opens formal proceedings against X

The European Commission is looking into a number of key areas. They are: 

• "Countering the dissemination of illegal content in the EU" and the measures taken by X " to counter the dissemination of illegal content in the EU"
• "The effectiveness of measures taken to combat information manipulation on the platform," specifically the effectiveness of X's 'Community Notes' system
• "The measures taken by X to increase the transparency of its platform," and "suspected shortcomings in giving researchers access to publicly accessible data"
• "A suspected deceptive design of the user interface" - notably in relation to the Blue checkmarks which denote a subscription to the platform 

As the release notes each of these counts in some way shows X (previously Twitter) may have fallen short of the Digital Services Act, applied to the platform after it was designated a "Very Large Online Platform" or "VLOP" in April. X has 112 million monthly active users in the EU, and as such is required to carry out the obligations set out in the DSA such as combating the spread of illegal content, and providing researchers with effective access to platform data. 

In a statement, EU exec Margrethe Vestager said "The higher the risk large platforms pose to our society, the more specific the requirements of the Digital Services Act are. We take any breach of our rules very seriously. And the evidence we currently have is enough to formally open a proceeding against X. The Commission will carefully investigate X's compliance with the DSA, to ensure European citizens are safeguarded online - as the regulation mandates."

In a blog post in November, X revealed steps it was taking "In times of uncertainty such as the Israel-Hamas conflict," confirming it had "actioned " more than 325,000 pieces of content and removing 3,000 accounts by "violent entities in the region, including Hamas."

In a statement to iMore, X said it "remains committed to complying with the Digital Services Act, and is cooperating with the regulatory process. It is important that this process remains free of political influence and follows the law. X is focused on creating a safe and inclusive environment for all users on our platform, while protecting freedom of expression, and we will continue to work tirelessly towards this goal."

More from iMore

• Elon Musk's next idea for X may be his worst yet - again
• Elon Musk is destroying X (Twitter), and now we have the proof
• Elon Musk's X is almost ready to take on FaceTime with video and audio calls

Hot on the heels of the news that more than 100 companies have removed their ads from X, the competition is starting to get serious. Meta-owned Instagram launched Threads earlier this year, although it didn't go live for one key group of people — those who live in countries that are part of the European Union. That could be about to change.

Threads only launched outside of the EU due to concerns over local rules surrounding how apps and services have to function, and the interlink between Threads and the Instagram app proper was thought to be a potential concern for regulators. But as X owner Elon Musk continues to alienate advertisers and users alike with controversial comments on a variety of things, Threads could be about to get a huge shot in the arm.

Musk recently said that the loss of advertisers from X could be enough to see the company cease to function. And despite a foul-mouthed rant in their direction, advertisers might not be too keen to reverse course. With that in mind, the arrival of Threads as a new player across almost an entire continent is probably not the news Musk wanted to wake up to this morning.

Coming to an EU country near you soon

While neither Meta nor Instagram has officially confirmed anything just yet, The Wall Street Journal reports that plans are afoot to bring Threads to the EU as soon as December. And with December starting tomorrow, the launch could be just around the corner.

The report notes that Meta and Instagram were put off by the EU's regulatory requirements, something it says are "among the toughest in the world." That's something Apple knows all about of course, having just added USB-C to the iPhone 15 at the behest of the same regulatory outfit.

However, Meta seems to have a solution — unlinking Threads and Instagram somewhat. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri had already confirmed the ability to delete a Threads account without also deleting the Instagram account it's associated with, and now the WSJ says Meta is ready to go a step further.

"To comply with those regulations, Meta will give EU users the choice of using Threads purely for consumption without a profile that allows them to make their own posts," the report claims, citing unnamed sources "familiar with the matter."

It's thought that this removal of the requirement to have an Instagram account to read Threads posts and the ability to uncouple a Threads account from Instagram could be enough to appease regulators.

Worth the risk

At this point, the quest for more users could well make launching in the EU a no-brainer for all concerned. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October that Threads had around 100 million monthly active users, and one analyst believes that could balloon. Debra Aho Williamson, an independent tech analyst, told The Wall Street Journal that the inclusion of EU accounts could result in an additional 40 million monthly users for threads throughout 2024.

The extra users is about more than just figures, though. The more people on Threads, the more conversations there are. And the more conversations, the more engaging the platform will become. And in a world where X still remains the go-to place for discussing breaking news, more conversations could be exactly what Threads needs to try and tip the balance.

Of course, whether launching in the EU is a risk at all is a matter for debate. It seems unlikely that Threads will launch in the region before Instagram and Meta are convinced that it won't fall foul of EU rules, after all.

More from iMore

• How to search your Twitter timeline
• Twitter gains AirPlay support for watching videos on the big screen ...

X (formerly known as Twitter), is charging new users in New Zealand and the Philippines in order to let them post, like, and retweet others, for a $1 fee.

Elon Musk, owner of X, previously spoke of charging users to post on the social platform in order to combat spam. While some users thought this wouldn’t amount to much, he’s followed through with this idea.

If you don’t pay for this $1 ‘Not a Bot’ service in these countries, you can only view your feed and not much else. This may expand to other countries if the trial becomes a success, but this could result in more users leaving the platform.

It’s another in a long line of bad ideas that will likely harm X rather than save it. Already, there’s proof that traffic to the site has dropped by 19% so far this year. So it’s only a matter of time before more users decide to move on.

With decisions such as changing the name from Twitter, unbanning abusive users, and a glitchy website, it’s not looking good if you’re using X as your main social platform.

I’ll be happier with the Dollar —  iMore’s Take

Since Musk took over, I’ve been using X far less compared to previous years. In the past, it was a great tool for catching up on news, making friends, and keeping in touch with existing ones.

But now, I use it for work purposes a few times each week, alongside checking my messages and that’s it. Both my ‘For You’ and ‘Following’ feeds also rarely show me the followers and content I follow, and engagement for the posts I do share, is next to nothing.

As an alternative, I’ve been mainly using Threads and Mastodon this year, and they have been great. Through them I’ve discovered new apps for iOS 17, kept up with the latest news, and caught up with friends who have also quit X.

So while there’s a good chance that this trial may be rolled out to all new users soon, I don’t mind if it does. I’ll use it as a rolling news feed, and then share my thoughts on those two competitor social platforms instead. Thanks, Elon.

More from iMore

• How to set up two-factor authentication for Twitter
• How to get started with Threads — Instagram's Twitter killer
• How to delete your Twitter account

October 2022 — Elon Musk buys Twitter, to the chagrin of most users. After changing the name, users have long reported that the platform is dying, with an influx of bots, spam accounts, and the return of some of the worst people in the world. X, as it's now known, has just had its September numbers and stats released, and backing up the experience of users, it doesn’t look good for the newly ‘refreshed’ platform.

Unless, apparently, your name is Elon Musk.

X is dying

Similarweb has just released a report filled to the brim with interesting stats that tell a curious story about the health of X. First, the big headline stat — over the month of September, traffic to the site has dropped -19%. That’s in the US alone, and there’s a similar story across the rest of the world, with a -11.6% drop in the UK, -13.4% in France, -17.9% in Germany and -17.5% in Australia.

Oh dear.

While these aren’t precipitous drops, combined with the continuous drop in traffic and user engagement since Musk first took over, it speaks volumes about the health of the platform since the South African ‘entrepreneur’ bought the social media site for a cool $44 billion. It also tells us that all of Musk's changes aren’t doing good things for the site, with new features like the premium blue check mark falling flat.

It’s not a drop completely unique to X. The traffic to the top 100 social networks has dropped by -3.7% year on year as well — although that number is obviously not as high as X’s impressive effort. There seems to be only one winner in the X numbers game, and it’s not the users, advertisers, or even the media who just had headlines removed from Twitter in an effort to stop users clicking away from the site. It’s not even X itself.

It’s Musk, of course. The only positive number out of all of them is visits to Musks account, which have risen by 96%. In a reasonable world, this would be users visiting his account to give him a nice, healthy block. Chances are it’s just people curious as to what he’s calling ‘interesting’ now, or what fresh new issue he’s ‘looking into.’

More from iMore

• Twitter's new verification service isn't available on Android or the ...
• Twitter may not get to change iOS app name to 'X' due to Apple's ...
• How to set up two-factor authentication for Twitter

In March, Elon Musk said he was bringing video and audio calls to Twitter. Now, a name change and six months later, Musk is highlighting the unique factors coming to X’s (formerly Twitter) FaceTime rival that he claims Apple’s offering just can’t match.

Taking to X, Musk highlighted a combination of three factors that are “unique” to X: Compatibility across iOS, Android, Mac & PC, No phone number is needed, and the fact that “X is the effective global address book.”

Musk’s statement would imply that X’s user base is the largest on the internet, giving users a new way of reaching out to a “global address book.” While X’s user base is vast, at around 400 million users, it doesn’t quite reach the size of other social networks like Instagram, with over one billion users, for example.

It’s a hyperbolic claim from Musk, but this is what we’ve come to expect since his purchase of Twitter last year. Musk thinks video & audio calls on X will be a game-changer for the social network, but we’ll have to wait for the feature to launch to see its potential.

Video & audio calls, so what? — iMore’s take

Elon Musk wants X to be the go-to place for your video & audio calls, displacing FaceTime and WhatsApp as the best options for calling your loved ones. Personally, this has absolutely no appeal to me, and the lack of need for a phone number to make a call makes the whole service a little uncomfortable.

Like most things Musk does, there’s a lack of information to explain how and why choices are being made. Earlier this month, Musk claimed that he wanted to remove the ability to block from X, and if that were to happen alongside the ability to make phone calls to other users without a phone number, then X would be a breeding ground for spam calls.

More options in tech are always a good thing, but whether or not Musk is wasting everyone’s time with more desultory promises is anyone’s guess.

X Premium, the subscription offering formerly known as Twitter Blue, is growing at a snail's pace despite Elon Musk's attempt to throw money at creators in an attempt to get people to sign up.

That's according to new figures which suggest that the number of people who have agreed to pay X's $8 per month subscription fee has only grown by a modest amount since July 1.

Ongoing income, via things like X Premium, is key to Musk's attempt to make X more profitable than the Twitter he bought for $44 billion in 2022. But it seems increasingly unlikely that X Premium will be the golden goose he'd been hoping for.

Where are all the subscribers?

Mashable reports on data collected by third-party researcher Travis Brown, with that data suggesting that fewer than 100,000 subscribers joined X Premium between July 1 and August 10.

Brown has been keeping tabs on active subscriptions to X Premium since the rebrand happened, and it won't make for good reading for Musk. X reportedly gained around 16,000 net new subscribers each week over the last six weeks. According to Brown, X Premium only has 827,000 users overall. 

This all comes as Musk and X continue to throw money at creators via a new system that sees them earn money based on the ads shown alongside their posts. Creators who want to take part in revenue sharing must pay for X Premium of course, but that doesn't seem to be driving new subscriptions.

"The data suggests that monetization has, thus far, failed to significantly move the needle for X Premium aka Twitter Blue subscribers," the report notes. "Especially when compared to subscription upticks based on Musk's previous moves, such as, ones that make the free version of X worse."

X Premium does offer more features than just revenue sharing for those with huge followings, however. A blue verification badge and the ability to post longer messages are included, as is an option to edit posts after they were posted.

Musk's change of name from Twitter to X continues to come under fire as well, with some arguing that he has ditched one of the world's most recognizable brands for something nondescript.

Elon Musk is going to call on Tim Cook to try and get him to tweak App Store policy to help him and his X, formerly Twitter, social network.

That's according to a post by the X owner when discussing the company's new subscription feature that allows creators to earn money from their posts. 

Apple currently takes 30% off every subscription that is processed via the App Store payment system, but Musk says that he'll be reaching out to Apple to try and change that.

30% of X's cut

Musk's post actually discusses something that is slightly different to the normal approach that companies take towards Apple's 30% cut. That approach usually suggests that Apple should take less of a cut from the transactions. But Musk wants to take a different tact.

"Apple does take 30%, but I will speak with @tim_cook and see if that can be adjusted to be just 30% of what 𝕏 keeps in order to maximize what creators receive," he said. The result would be that creators get to take home more money, with X being the one losing 30% from its cut.

Whether Apple will agree to that approach remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely. Apple would still take less from those transactions by carving out the creator's cut, something it seems unlikely to want to do.

This might also be a precedent that Apple would rather not set because there are no doubt plenty of other situations throughout the App Store where a similar approach could be taken. However, it seems Apple may have recently made a small allowance to let X change its App Store name to its new single-character designation, a format not currently permitted by the company. 

What will happen next remains to be seen of course, but we do know we'd love to be a fly on the wall when that discussion with Tim Cook takes place.

Cook of course has plenty of other things on his mind right now. There's the impending launch of the 2023 Apple Watches of course, not to mention the best iPhones the company has ever made. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro lineups are expected to debut next month.

The world's smartest and most stable businessman Elon Musk has brought the artist formerly known as Twitter into sharp disrepute from both the neighbors of its HQ and the city of San Francisco after installing a massive strobe light in the shape of an X on the roof to celebrate the company's new branding. 

The social media outlet, which has famously been strapped for cash recently (who can imagine why?), has changed its name to X in a bizarre rebranding exercise that only the Tesla and Space X mogul could have thought up. After announcing that Twitter was changing its name to X last week, users spent days still able to "tweet", logging in to the "Twitter" app, and seeing the Twitter logo on its homepage. 

Now, Twitter is very much X, and has even managed to successfully change its name as such on the iOS App Store despite Apple's band on one-character app names, and the company has erected a giant strobe light on the roof to celebrate. Now, Twitter's neighbors are furious, and the city of San Francisco isn't best pleased either. 

Shout out to my X

"I would be f*****g LIVID. Imagine this f*****g X sign right across from your bedroom," quipped one user who tweeted a video of the outrageously bright sign that now adorns the roof of X HQ, lighting up the entire building opposite like the Death Star. 

San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection went to the headquarters on Friday night to demand answers, reports The New York Times, but the offending strobe light was quite operational when the inspector arrived. 

According to NYT, Patrick Hannan, a spokesman for the department, stated that "a building permit is required to make sure the sign is structurally sound and installed safely,“ and that "planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign.”

The company has been notified that it is in violation of city code and has been asked to give access to the roof for an inspection. For its part, Twitter has told the city that it was a "temporary lighted sign for an event", but denied a second attempt by inspectors to access the roof on Saturday. 

"This whole Twitter rebranding is going from nonsensical, to stupid, to downright insane," said one angry user. "This is the new Twitter, or X, or whatever it's called now, sign seen from an apartment near the HQ. Are you kidding me? This is absurd and I'm sure it's illegal."

Elon Musk’s renaming of Twitter to X is well and truly underway, but he hit a roadblock over the weekend when it was discovered that Apple's App Store rules require apps to have at least two characters in their name. But that doesn’t seem to have been a problem after all.

Those with Twitter installed on their iPhones and iPads will notice that they now have a new app update available to them — and it has a brand-new name.

Twitter is dead. Long live X, although Apple might have some questions to answer about how that actually came about.

 One rule for Musk?

The fun all started when Bleeping Computer reported over the weekend that Apple’s own App Store rules meant that the X app name simply wasn’t available. While Twitter had already been renamed to X on the Google Play Store, it remained 'Twitter' on Apple platforms. The reason was simple — apps must have at least two characters in their name. 'X' is one character shy, so it couldn’t happen.

Except, fast-forward 48 hours and here we are. Twitter has been replaced by X in the App Store and on countless devices around the globe. Quite how that happened remains to be seen, but it would appear that someone at Apple may have manually allowed X through the review process. Whether that was the result of conversations higher up the food chain, we don’t know. But we do know that Apple's App Store doesn't permit apps to have a single character name, and some developers aren't happy about it. "Someone got special treatment" one developer quipped. 

What we also know is that Elon Musk spent time being shown around Apple Park by none other than CEO Tim Cook last December. There is clearly a line of communication there, even if Elon Musk doesn't really like Apple or its App Store policies. Maybe that was leveraged to help kill off the Twitter name for good.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post if and when we hear back.

Twitter's rebrand to 'X' has been a topic of debate all week, with some being delighted at it, while many are confused because of the awkward transition. The newest snag this rebrand has hit is coming from the App Store. It appears that Twitter is unable to rename itself to X in the App Store listing because of Apple's App Store rules.

Twitter has already changed its name to X on the Google Play Store, but despite the listing page overhaul on the App Store, the name of the app itself remains Twitter. This is likely because of Apple's App Store naming guidelines.

X may need more words to change App Store name

Nick Sheriff noted on Twitter that this snag could be a result of Apple's App Store rule that does not allow one character names. App names need to be two characters or more, which means that there currently isn't a way for Twitter to change the name to X on the App Store.

However, some apps use a subtitle after the app name, and that may be Twitter's way out of this situation. For example, YouTube is named "YouTube: Watch, Listen, Stream" on the App Store, even though it doesn't need to have a subtitle. Twitter could adapt a similar naming style and go for something like "X:  The Everything App" (whatever that means), since that's the phrase being thrown around with this rebrand.

Apple hasn't bent the App Store naming guidelines for anybody since inception, and it's unlikely that X will be an exception. Even though Apple has made exceptions in other aspects, it doesn't seem like something that may happen given the whimsical nature of Twitter under the new management. 

It will be clear in the coming days what approach Twitter and Apple take. In the meantime, Twitter will remain named Twitter on the App Store on all the best iPhones out there.

Elon Musk's quest to ditch the Twitter name and replace it with X continues after the social network picked up the coveted @X username. But despite some assuming that its previous owner would be in for a big payday, all they got was some merch and a promise of a meeting with someone at the company.

While not necessarily allowed by Twitter's terms of service, accounts have been known to change hands for cold hard cash over the years. Single-character names like @X are particularly sought after and Twitter's branding change could have made this account owner pretty rich. But Twitter just up and took the account instead.

"They just took it essentially – kinda what I thought might happen," the account's previous owner said in an interview following the loss of his username.

Free X

In an interview with The Telegraph, the previous @X owner said that he received an email from Twitter reminding him that the account was never his in the first place — it was always owned by Twitter and simply loaned out, as is the case with all of our usernames for that matter.

Gene X Hwang, a photographer in San Francisco, said that he'd been offered some merch by way of recompense, although it isn't clear what was on offer. A meeting with the company's management was also offered, but nobody has said what that was supposed to be about.

As for Hwang, he now has a new username to tweet from although it's fair to say that @x12345678998765 isn't quite as snappy as his old one.

Twitter's rebrand comes as Musk tries to turn the short-form messaging service into a WeChat-like everything app. If he gets his way we can expect Twitter to start offering in-app payments, improved video support, and more moving forward.

Elon Musk announced that Twitter is in the midst of rebranding to 'X', with some changes already starting to take effect.

We've been here before with other major Twitter announcements on weekends, such as introducing a limit on how many tweets you can view in one day if you're not a Twitter Blue subscriber, but this rebrand looks to be something that will stay for the foreseeable.

Musk seems to love the letter 'X', with SpaceX and Tesla's Model X. As of July 24, users are still puzzled as to why this change is taking place, and while CEO Linda Yaccarino has tried to explain why, it's only made matters worse.

X isn't marking the spot

If you've read the above tweet and you still feel confused, you're not alone. It's the type of statement that would fit better on a LinkedIn post with a photo of a MacBook Pro on a beach in Bali.

This change won't just affect you, but it will also affect the brands you use and the content you watch that all mention Twitter in some way - from the hashtags that are displayed, to hosts on reality shows mentioning the site to 'stay in the discussion'.

It's a total brand change that looks to clearly be massaging an ego for no rhyme or reason. For those who remember the days of Twitter when it brought opportunity, discussion, and fun chats with people you've never met before, that time looks to be wrapping up.

There are other alternatives you can look into, such as Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon, but none of them have yet to be the go-to-replacement for Twitter as yet. 

Meta is still yet to bring a chronological feed and other features to Threads, and this impatience is making users leave the platform already. So while Musk is deciding to change a well-known brand to a terrible one, many users may still be stuck to X/Twitter until a true replacement arrives.

Twitter has launched its Creator Ads Revenue Sharing program in order to entice creators to stay on the platform following the launch of Instagram's Threads.

Meta's Threads app launched last week and racked up over 100 million users in just a few days. Now, the threat of a competitor looks to have forced Twitter into an interesting move.

On Thursday, Twitter shared the new program in a tweet, "We’re expanding our creator monetization offering to include ads revenue sharing for creators. This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue, starting in the replies to their posts. This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter."

Since that tweet, large Twitter accounts have begun sharing their first Creative Ads Revenue Sharing payment with some numbers shockingly large.

Billy Markus, the founder of Dogecoin, shared his first revenue payment for his 2.1 million follower account, where he earned a staggering $37,050.

Other users on the platform, like Benny Johnson and Ashley St. Clair, have also shared their revenue with payments of $9,546 and $7,153 respectively. St. Clair goes into more detail, highlighting that her 711,000 follower account had 328 million tweet impressions in the last 28 days. "These are awesome payout numbers & I encourage every single creator to share their content here"

Your move, Threads

It looks like Elon Musk took the launch of Threads personally and decided that an ad revenue platform for Twitter was the way to entice creators to stay on his platform. The Twitter Creator Ads Revenue Sharing platform requires you to subscribe to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations and have at least 5m impressions on posts in the last 3 months to be eligible.

We'll see if Threads and Zuckerberg respond to incentivize creators to get on board with Threads as their main social media platform, although that will be tricky, considering the app currently doesn't have any ads, among other huge omissions. 

Either way, if you're an influencer, this battle to become the supreme text social media app looks like it could line your wallets and make for some huge paydays.

Instagram's Threads, an app that appears to have launched in an attempt to compete with Twitter, now has more than 100 million users.

The number, which was reached within just five days following last week's go-live, was confirmed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. It was also confirmed by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri.

However, neither have confirmed how many people are actively using the service which might suggest that the figure is considerably lower than the 100 million mark.

Mosseri's Threads post suggests that even he didn't expect 100 million people to join Threads so quickly.

"100 million people signed up for Threads in five days," Mosseri said. "I’m not sure I can wrap my mind around that fact. It’s insane; I can’t make sense of it."

Zuckerberg's thoughts were similar to Mosseri's, with his Threads post saying that he "can't believe it's only been 5 days" since the service went live.

Signing up to Threads is of course extremely simple if you already have an Instagram account, something that could have helped the Twitter competitor reach such a high number in such a short period of time. It's still very early days for Threads and it will now be up to Zuckerberg and Mosseri to make sure it builds on this early momentum.

It'll have to do it in an environment where Twitter owner Elon Musk isn't taking the competition too well. He's already taken legal action, claiming that Instagram hired former Twitter employees and is using trade secrets against it.

As for Threads, you can try it out for yourself now. It's available in more than 100 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom, but plenty of countries are not currently supported. E.U. member countries are excluded over regulatory concerns related to the use of users' data.

Twitter might not be the social network it once was but it's still the one that a whole load of people spend their time on and now they have a new feature to enjoy.

Video support has been around on Twitter for years and Apple even shared an entire episode of the Apple TV Plus hit Silo as a freebie recently. But watching on your iPhone is no fun, and using screen sharing via AirPlay didn't always work well. Now, that workaround is no longer needed.

That's because Twitter has now added the ability to AirPlay videos right from within its app, making it easier than ever to watch longer videos on a big screen.

Must-watch Twitter content

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 he's been trying to turn it into an everything app, similar to WeChat in China. That includes having it be the go-to place for video content and he's now one step closer to making that happen — even if there's still a ways to go.

Things took a step in the right direction when Apple TV Plus made the entire first episode of Silo available to stream on the platform at the end of June.

Musk alluded to being able to watch the episode on the big screen but at the time that required using Control Center's display mirroring, a workaround that didn't always make for the best experience. But by adding support for AirPlay viewers can be sure that the content they're streaming to the big screen is in the correct aspect ratio, for example.

All that's required to use AirPlay is a compatible TV or an Apple TV box. The Apple TV 4K is the best around, although even with Amazon Prime Day deals it still isn't cheap. Thankfully, there are tons of Apple TV alternatives out there if you're looking for something that won't break the bank.

The next big social media application is here as Meta's Instagram Threads looks to take pride of place on your iPhone.

Threads, Meta's rival to Twitter with text-based communication and short replies, has finally arrived, and it looks to be a hit already, with over 10 million users in just a few hours after launch.

Signing up for Threads is very simple, thanks to its integration with Instagram, but that means you need to have an Instagram account. This how-to presumes you're one of the one billion Instagram users worldwide. If you are, here's how to sign up for Threads.

How to sign up for Threads, an Instagram app.

1. Download Instagram Threads on the App Store (the app is available on iOS and Android in over 100 countries at launch)
2. The app will show your Instagram username as soon as you launch for the first time
3. Import your Profile Pic and Bio from Instagram, or write your own, you can't pick a different username to your Instagram account

4. Select whether you want a Public profile or a Private Profile
5. Threads will show all the accounts you follow on Instagram, choose to Follow all or select manually
6. Tap Join Threads

Signing up for Threads is incredibly simple thanks to its Instagram integration. That's probably one of the main factors as to why the user base has grown so quickly as it takes seconds to set up your account.

Threads is here to take over

Threads is set to become the next generation of social media apps after the recent turmoil of Twitter and Reddit has pushed users away from the platforms. Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes he can capitalize on the current state of social media applications to take control of Twitter's market share.

The app feels fluid and fun to use, albeit a little barebones. You can check your feed, write new threads, search for users, and check your followers from the bottom of the app in a very similar way to Instagram. None of it is rocket science, and you'll feel right at home if you've used Instagram for years.

Now you've signed up for Threads, start following your friends and family as well as public profiles like @imoregram, and if you want to follow a how-to wizz, I'm also on the platform @jadisotto. See you there.

Instagram's Twitter rival, Threads, already has more than 30 million users despite only being available for a matter of days, according to Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

Threads launched earlier today and allows users to post short messages of up to 500 characters. Threads is an attempt to capitalize on Twitter's turmoil following the acquisition by Elon Musk last year, and it looks like users are already on board.

Zuckerberg says the key to the platform's success will be its friendliness. In a reply on the Threads app asking if "Anyone think this can become bigger than Twitter!?" Zuckerberg replied, "It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will."

Threads is now available in over 100 countries, including the U.S and the U.K, but anyone in Europe will have to wait because of regulatory concerns to do with the data being used by the app, which according to the App Store may include health, financial, and browsing data linked to users' identities.

The start of an endless thread

Meta says that the current version of Threads is an "initial version," and the company says, "Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text,"

Despite over 10 million sign-ups thanks to the easy integration with Instagram, there have been minor issues, particularly for those running iOS 17 developer beta. Obviously, anyone that uses a beta expects crashing, but currently, some users are unable to create a thread with images or manually select who they want to follow during sign-up.

These issues should be ironed out fairly quickly, either with an update to the Threads app or with the launch of iOS 17 Public Beta later this month. As it stands, Threads is on the right path to becoming one of the best apps on iPhone.

After almost two years of testing, Twitter has released a new version of Tweetdeck, the advanced dashboard that's meant for social media managers and other social media professionals – but there's a huge catch in order to use it again.

In a tweet and a support page, Twitter revealed that you need to be subscribed to Twitter Blue, its appalling subscription service where you not only get a blue tick beside your account handle, but better quality videos, fewer ads, and the ability to edit tweets, and some more minor additions. Things that, until Twitter Blue arrived, you got for free.

Originally released in 2008 and acquired by Twitter in 2011, Tweetdeck was laid out in a bunch of columns, so you could see how many had liked, retweeted, and followed one of your accounts. In essence, perfect for businesses.

Since Musk's takeover of the company, it's not only gotten worse, but this new version has gotten rid of almost everything that made Tweetdeck worth using.

Every step since 2022 has been a huge misstep

As recent as July 2, Musk announced that there would be a limit on how many tweets users could view, and if the limit was reached, you would be unable to view anymore.

It was as baffling as his other decisions, such as allowing ticks when you subscribed to Twitter Blue, previously banned accounts now free to spread more hate speech, and letting go of the majority of Twitter's workforce.

And now, we have a worse version of Tweetdeck - with users already sharing how broken it is. From missing tweets to odd design choices.

But it goes even deeper than that - it's not available on mobile or as an app, just on a desktop browser, which limits plenty of users if they're away from a laptop or even a tablet.

It does seem like Twitter is doing everything it can to lose users, with many switching over to Bluesky and Mastodon over the past few days, and this change will do nothing to keep users around with the blue bird for much longer.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, has revealed its new app, Threads, a rival to Twitter, will go live on July 6 after weeks of back and forths between Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s owner Elon Musk.

The Threads app looks very similar to Twitter, and Meta describes the new social media platform as a “text-based conversation app”. Users will be able to follow their Instagram followers from the start, use their same username, and reply in threads similar to a Tweet. 

Apps like Mastodon and Blue Sky have tried to gain momentum in the midst of Twitter’s turmoil since the platform was purchased by Musk last year. Although, neither has managed to gain mainstream popularity. Threads, however, has Meta behind it, and while many dislike Meta’s platforms, the company knows how to succeed in social media. 

Instagram has over 1 billion users, which means if Threads is launched correctly, it could gain instant traction in a world where users are getting tired of Twitter and Reddit’s recent shenanigans.

A fight to the death?

Last month, Zuckerberg and Musk agreed to a cage fight to settle their differences following months of Twitter arguments. 

After the Threads launch announcement, Musk responded, “Thank goodness they’re so sanely run”.

The launch of Threads comes as Twitter continues to make drastic changes that impact its loyal userbase, including the restriction of the number of tweets users can see alongside paywalled benefits behind the premium, Twitter Blue.

It will be interesting to see how Threads does once it launches on July 6, as the world is clamoring for the next successful social media platform following Twitter’s continued disarray and the closure of third-party Reddit apps last month. Although, you’ll probably need to let Meta have lots of personal data to even open an account.

Elon Musk's Twitter 2.0 seems to be going well. As July started, a lot of users found Twitter unable to load, with many reporting an error message which said that the user had reached their "rate limit." Musk later announced that Twitter had started rate-limiting users in an apparent attempt to prevent "data scraping."

The initial limits seem to have been revised multiple times since then, but Twitter's rate limiting still seems to be active. Twitter Blue subscribers also seem to be rate limited, although not as badly as non-paying users.

Twitter begins limiting access to the platform

The rate limit began at 6000 posts per day for verified accounts, 600 posts a day for unverified accounts, and 300 posts a day for new unverified accounts. Musk then announced they had changed the limits to 8,000, 800, and 400, and again to 10,000, 1,000, and 500.

There has been a lot of discourse over this, mostly blasting this decision to limit Twitter usage. Twitter has famously had an issue turning revenue through advertising, and many users were quick to point out that limiting usage isn't great for advertising.

There are also theories about how this is related to Twitter's pending Google Cloud fees. Apparently, the contract was due for renewal on June 30th, and some industry experts have said that this new policy could be a result of Twitter's usage getting throttled. 

Another issue seemed to be that by imposing this rate limit, Twitter had accidentally started a self-DDoS, where the site was sending repeated requests to load data that it itself had limited, leading to the site DDoS-ing itself.

There are a whole lot of other inconsistencies as well, with the limits not working in the same manner for every user. Users have already begun figuring out ways to bypass it as well. Regardless, it seems like Twitter is going to become tougher to use in the coming days.

Here we go again. Twitter is once again experiencing stability problems, with the social network apparently struggling to keep its website up today.

Downdetector has seen a significant spike in reports of Twitter blackouts today, with 83% of complaints relating to an issue with the website. The downtime is being reported in both the U.S. and the UK, with the home page and log-in screens inaccessible for users.

However, the app for Twitter seems relatively stable, with only 10% of complaints relating to that part of the service.

Twitter down — a common occurrence 

We're beginning to lose count of how many times Twitter has fallen over since Elon Musk took over the platform, which has just hired a new CEO to take over the day-to-day duties from its erratic billionaire owner.

Musk of late has seemed more interested in squaring up to Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, with the two said to be genuinely considering a cage fight. Yep, that's the times we're living in.

Whatever happens, there are other options for Twitter users. There's Mastodon, although it can be a little technical for some. Hive social is another Twitter alike, and there's even Donald Trump's own Truth Social, should you be that way inclined. And like orange face paint.

We'll update this story as it develops.

It's been quite the 12 months for Twitter and things are set to change yet more since the appointment of a new CEO.

Linda Yaccarino took over from previous CEO Elon Musk, and with the Tesla CEO still Twitter's owner, it remains to be seen how much of an impact she'll be allowed to have. But she's starting off strong, saying that she already has plans for "Twitter 2.0."

Those plans were outlined in a Twitter thread in which Yaccarino shared her vision for the future of Twitter.

Twitter 2.0

The BBC reports that the email thread was also emailed to the Twitter employees who remain.

In the thread the new CEO said that it's "also becoming clear that the global town square needs transformation" and it appears that Twitter will be the company to do it.

"Enter Twitter 2.0," Yaccarino says.

The thread continues, saying that "Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication," before adding that the claim is "not an empty promise."

But it remains to be seen how well that new mission will jive with the whims of Elon Musk — a man who has been known to throw his weight behind conspiracy theories here and there, especially on his social platform of choice — Twitter.

All eyes will now be on Twitter's erstwhile advertisers, a group of people who have been spooked ever since Twitter was sold to Musk in late 2022. Since then Musk has reinstated various Twitter accounts that had previously been banned for spreading misinformation — something Twitter 2.0 apparently won't stand for.

The only real question now is perhaps the obvious one — will Yaccarino be allowed to do her job, or will Musk take back control sooner rather than later?

Twitter has not been Elon Musk's finest purchasing choice so far. He bought the platform for $44bn back in October 2022, and now one of the last remaining investors in the social platform has confirmed that the company has lost around two-thirds of its original value.

The Guardian reports that Fidelity, an investment company that holds a stake in Twitter, has confirmed that its initial $20m investment is now only worth $6.6m. That puts Twitter's total value at around $14.75bn – an incredible $30bn loss in the space of only nine months.

Where's it all gone?

Fidelity disclosed the information in its quarterly performance reporting, as a part of the blue-chip growth fund – an initiative that invests in a range of US and international companies with a focus on, crucially, 'stable valuations.'

When Musk took over Twitter, he offered to value Fidelity's stake in the company at $20m. The Guardian says that "That valuation came with an incentive for Musk to lowball the estimate, however, because the higher it was, the more expensive employee remuneration would be."

Musk has had a rough time with Twitter since he bought the platform, in some cases becoming a laughing stock in the financial sector. He's laid off massive amounts of his workforce and faced backlash from key staff and even celebrities over his handling of the platform.

To try and make Twitter some money, Musk introduced Twitter Blue – although that just created its own problems, with users creating targeted block lists for verified accounts. Most recently, Musk pulled out of a European misinformation group, jeopardizing the company's future in the continent.

While Musk claims that since he's taken over the number of Bot accounts and the amount of misinformation has decreased, some believe otherwise – and now it looks like the valuations of his company are falling by the second.

Do the continued blunders of Musk stop you from using Twitter? Join the conversation in our forum if you've moved onto other services since.

As we all know at this point WWDC 2023 is now just around the corner. The big Apple event will kick off on June 5 ahead of a week of developer get-togethers and labs. But we're all much more interested in what hardware and software will be announced — and now there's a new hashflag that we can use when discussing it all on Twitter.

The new WWDC 2023 Twitter hashflag is now live ahead of that June 5 opening keynote which means that we can now tweet with the #WWDC23 hashtag and have it automatically replaced by a rather fancy-looking hashflag.

That hashflag will add a colorful Apple logo to the end of the hashtag itself, making for a more visually appealing way for people to easily spot which tweets are related to Apple's huge event.

Lots to share

And calling WWDC 2023 a huge event might not do it justice. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has already suggested this opening keynote could run for more than two hours, while the list of likely announcements is long.

Those include the highly anticipated Reality Pro AR/VR headset as well as a larger 15-inch MacBook Air. There's the possibility of other new Macs joining the list of announcements, and then it's all about software; iOS 17, macOS 14, iPadOS 17, and watchOS 10 will be joined by tvOS 17 come the big day.

None of those releases will be available to download on day one of course, with a September timeframe the most likely release window.

By then the WWDC 2023 hashflag will be dead and buried, so make sure to make the most of it while it's here. Sure, Twitter might not be the place it once was but it's still sure to be the place to discuss Apple's announcements once WWDC 2023 kicks into gear next week.

Twitter has pulled out of an EU voluntary Code of Practice that was designed to help prevent the spread of misinformation.

While Twitter is yet to confirm the move, the EU's internal market commissioner shared the news in a tweet. However, this doesn't absolve Twitter of its responsibilities, Thierry Breton confirmed in the same tweet.

"But obligations remain. You can run but you can’t hide," Breton said, adding that fighting disinformation will be a legal requirement as of August 25, 2023.

'Our teams will be ready for enforcement'

In what was surely a shot across the bow of Twitter and owner Elon Musk, Breton also said that the EU's "teams will be ready for enforcement."

The BBC notes that dozens of companies voluntarily signed up for the code including some big names like Meta and Google. It was first launched in June of 2022 with the aim of preventing the spread of fake news and promoting transparency.

Neither of those things appears to be on the agenda at Twitter. The BBC reminds us that Twitter once had a team dedicated to dealing with disinformation. But with workers either having resigned or laid off, it isn't clear where Twitter stands in terms of its will or ability to ensure fake news doesn't spread across its social network like wildfire.

However, it might not have a choice. The Digital Services Act will come into effect on August 25, making it a legal requirement for companies with more than 45 million monthly active users to comply with laws surrounding misinformation.

"The law will mean Twitter will have to have a mechanism for users to flag illegal content, act upon notifications 'expeditiously' and put in measures to address the spread of disinformation," the BBC adds.

It remains to be seen what Twitter will actually do when faced with the EU's requirements.

Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk says that he is going to stay true to his word and step down as the head of the company he bought for $44 billion in 2022.

While Musk will still be the owner, he says he'll be handing over the CEO title to someone new in around six weeks or so. The move comes after Musk ran a poll in December 2022 that asked whether he should step aside. More than 57% of the 15.8 million voters said that he should. Now, six months later, it's happening.

Musk has so far refused to say who will be taking the top job, but one name has already taken its place at the top of the list — and it's one that could help Twitter find new ways to make money from ads.

It's happening

While some had wondered whether Musk would actually step down, it seems that he is indeed doing so — with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Linda Yaccarino will be the one to take over.

Linda Yaccarino is NBCUniversal's current head of advertising and has been with the company for more than a decade. In her time there Yaccarino "has been an industry advocate for finding better ways to measure the effectiveness of advertising," the report notes. "As head of NBCU’s advertising sales, she was key in the launch of the company’s ad-supported Peacock streaming service."

It doesn't take too much imagination to see why Musk might find Yaccarino to be someone worth taking a look at. However, it'll be interesting to see how a possible renewed focus on ads will jive with Twitter Blue's feature that reduces the number of ads shown to subscribers.

Musk says that he will still be executive chair at Twitter while also acting as CTO "overseeing product, software & sysops."

As for how this pans out from here remains to be seen. But with Tesla shareholders already voicing concerns that Twitter is a distraction for their own CEO this will surely be good news for them.

The Twitter that we see today is almost unrecognizable from the one that Elon Musk bought for $44 billion in late 2022 and now the social network has launched a new feature that was promised way back then — encrypted direct messages.

The new encrypted DMs have now gone live for the first time with people able to choose whether they actually want to use it when creating a new thread. What's more, they can also choose to send an encrypted message via a thread that was previously unencrypted.

And it's all live now — assuming you're willing to pay for it.

No encryption for you

Twitter has a new support page that explains how encrypted DMs work, and while it's very wordy it does do its best at getting the job done. "Twitter seeks to be the most trusted platform on the internet, and encrypted Direct Messages are an important part of that," the page starts.

It then sets out the plan. "As Elon Musk said, when it comes to Direct Messages, the standard should be, if someone puts a gun to our heads, we still can’t access your messages," the page continues before admitting that it isn't "quite there yet." Still, encrypted messages are here.

However, they're only available if both the sender and recipient of the DM happen to be verified. That could mean they're part of a verified organization or, more likely, that they're paying for Twitter Blue.

As for how it's encrypted, Twitter's explanation is that it will "generate a pair of device specific keys, called private and public key pair." It goes on, adding that "the public key is automatically registered when a user logs into Twitter on a new device or browser;  the private key never leaves the device and therefore is never communicated to Twitter."

From there, we learn that there's also "a per conversation key that is used to encrypt the content of messages. The private-public key pairs are used to exchange the conversation key securely between participating devices."

Of course, none of that matters if you aren't paying for Twitter, and, if reports are true, few people actually are.

Elon Musk has announced a host of new features coming to Twitter, including encrypted DMs, and voice and video chat similar to Apple's FaceTime.

In a tweet sent to his 139 million followers, Musk said that the Twitter app will soon allow users to call any other handle on the platform "so you can talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number." 

Musk didn't expand on this feature, although privacy concerns will be at the forefront of discussion, especially considering the continuous overhaul that Twitter has received daily since he purchased the platform for $44 billion in October 2022.

Alongside the new FaceTime competitor, Musk announced that encrypted direct messages should be hitting the social media app this week. He said, "Release of encrypted DMs V1.0 should happen tomorrow (May 11th). This will grow in sophistication rapidly. The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head."

Again, encrypted direct messages on what feels like a rogue platform in its current state will be heralded as a genius move by some users and terrifying by others.

Twitter's new identity

Adding voice and video calling alongside encrypted direct messages bring features to Twitter that could see the platform regain its mojo. That being said, it will be interesting to see if users trust the privacy of these features considering the constant chop and change and unrest at Twitter since Musk's takeover. If they are a success, the Twitter app for iPhone will fit right at home on all the best iPhones. 

We won't have to wait long to test out encrypted DMs, but voice and video calls have an unannounced timeline. That means we could be waiting months to hear about the feature again, or it could drop tomorrow. One thing's for sure, Elon Musk loves to make big promises, and allowing Twitter users to call anyone on the platform could be the biggest one yet.

Is there a Twitter account name that you've had your eye on but never been able to get because it already exists? If that account isn't being actively used it could soon be up for grabs.

That's because Twitter's Elon Musk says that it is now starting to purge the accounts that aren't actually being used, meaning anyone who claimed a name years ago but never used it will soon see it put back into the pool, ready for someone else to claim.

There is so far no suggestion that Twitter intends to charge people for the usernames that will become available, thankfully.

Years-old activity

The news came via CEO Elon Musk who posted to Twitter to say that his company is "purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years." He went on to say that people could see their follower count drop as a result, but that's unlikely to be a huge problem for the vast majority of people.

Musk also appeared to confirm in a follow-up tweet that people will see the usernames become available as a result of the purge, suggesting that they will be offered up as if they were any other name. That means that if there's one you're particularly keen on you might want to get into the habit of checking to see if it has become available — before someone else snags it.

Musk will surely be hoping that by making desirable accounts available he could see people choose Twitter over the competition, while all those people who joined Twitter late will just hope to be able to get their name without all the random numerals at the end.

However, it's worth noting that Twitter itself hasn't actually confirmed the timeline for this — we've only Musk's word that this is happening. And as we've seen since his late 2022 buyout of the company, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll happen any time soon.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk have both taken it upon themselves to complain about Apple's App Store rules once more.

While neither man has been complimentary about Apple's App Store rules in the past, the latest discussion came after Twitter launched a new subscription feature that allows users to sell subscriptions to their content. But it appears that creating those subscriptions can take a little longer on iPhones because of Apple's rules.

Replying to the reasoning, Ek called the move "absurd" and suggested that Apple's approach simply wasn't scalable.

'This is absurd'

The discussion kicked off when Musk told Twitter users that "it takes a few days longer for subscriptions to go active on iPhone vs web" because "all subscriptions currently have to be approved by Apple." That would suggest that each Twitter creator's subscription is being turned into an individual in-app purchase in the App Store, meaning Apple must check each subscription every time one is created.

That's something that could prove problematic if a lot of people create subscriptions — something not lost on Spotify's CEO.

"This is absurd," Ek started. "How would this scale with every creator on every platform on the internet? And what about if a platform thought the right fee was 0% or 10% instead of Apple's 30%?"

The 30% cut Apple takes from App Store transactions has long been a bone of contention for Spotify and others, so it's little wonder that Ek took the opportunity to mention it here. Musk is also no stranger to complaining about Apple and the App Store, having previously also made his feelings about that 30% cut clear.

As for Apple, it believes the best iPhone is one that's protected by the App Store which means no sideloading and no payments outside of its walled garden. But with those walls starting to crumble as global governmental pressure mounts it remains to be seen where Apple will go from here.

In the meantime, Twitter subscriptions are going to take a little while to go live and you can blame Apple, apparently.

 Twitter really has been the gift that keeps on giving since Elon Musk’s semi-successful buyout of the social network in late 2022. I say semi-successful because anyone watching along must surely agree that things have gone all kinds of wrong since Musk signed his name on whatever dotted line gave him control of Twitter.

Since that fateful day we’ve seen Musk fire thousands of employees, revamp Twitter Blue, ditch legacy blue checkmark verification, and a whole lot more. We even saw him walking around Twitter HQ carrying a sink for some reason.

Fast forward a few months and Musk’s stewardship of Twitter has gone from being merely scattershot to borderline illegal. And while he’ll probably never have to deal with any real consequences as a result of Twitter’s latest mess, it’s all getting to be beyond parody. It’s almost not funny anymore. It’s just all a bit sad.

 The Twitter Blue fiasco

 The latest mess all revolves around, as so often seems to be the case right now, Twitter Blue.

The paid-for verification system gets you things like longer tweets and that blue checkmark (which is actually white but why reinvent the wheel). There are other bits and pieces but, frankly, who really cares at this point? The only other benefit of note is probably the ability to edit tweets. You get fewer ads but you still see some ads. For $8 I want no ads. But that’s another editorial.

The real crux of the matter is that blue checkmark. You can just imagine the meeting at Twitter HQ. Musk and his band of advisors all sitting at an impossibly big conference table rubbing their hands together. The idea was simple — take everyone’s blue checkmarks off them and watch the money roll in as they all rush to hand over $8 a month to get it back.

Except, that didn’t happen.

The Guardian reports that when all the totting up is done Twitter gained around $300-worth of new subscribers after taking legacy blue checkmarks away. Hardly enough to make a dent in Twitter’s financial problems. It's not even enough to buy Apple's best small iPhone. And definitely not enough to replace that sink Musk got from who-knows-where.

 Free checkmarks for (almost) everyone

 Next came the torrent of free checkmarks. Some celebrities like Stephen King and LeBron James had said they wouldn’t pay for Twitter Blue, so Elon Musk paid for it himself. Why? Nobody knows. Some other accounts, normally with a million or more followers, also got their blue checkmarks back. Again, nobody knows why. But it’s as if someone at Twitter realized that by not verifying who these big accounts were they could be opening everyone up to impersonation. It’s as if, and bear with me, there should be some sort of way for people to know who are the real deal and who are imposters.

At this point, it’s unclear who will get their checkmarks back and what Twitter thought it was gaining by taking them away in the first place. As mentioned, if Musk thought the 400,000 legacy verified Twitter users would pay up, he was very much mistaken.

Legal issues afoot? 

 So people are being given free Twitter Blue. You’d think that was a good thing, but it might not be. Each Twitter Blue account has a badge that says they, you guessed it, paid for Twitter Blue. The problem is that Twitter Blue has become so toxic that people don’t want to be associated with it. And it could even be seen as them endorsing the subscription service even if they haven’t actually paid for it themselves. That’s an issue.

It is in the UK, at least. The Guardian cites a solicitor that points to legal precedence for this thing — companies can’t make it look like celebrities endorse a product if they haven’t actually endorsed it.

Will Musk or Twitter ever face legal penalties? Probably not. But the fact we’re even discussing it just speaks to the Twitter of late 2022 and the first half of 2023. It’s scattershot. It doesn’t think things through. It acts and then waits for the consequences, often surprised that any exist at all.

Now, who does that remind me of?

Just a day after Twitter started to finally remove the legacy blue verification checkmarks from accounts that don't pay for Twitter Blue, things have gotten even stranger. Now, Twitter says that advertisers must be verified if they want to run ads on the social network.

The move means that businesses running ads will effectively have to pay $1,000 per month if they want to be able to advertise on Twitter, although they could potentially pay the base $8 per month and pretend they're an individual. That would mean missing out on the other features that verified organizations benefit from, however.

In an email to advertisers, Twitter did also note that businesses already spending more than $1,000 per month will automatically get a free gold checkmark applied to their account if they haven't got it already.

Verification at a cost

The news was shared as people posted screenshots of an email outlining the plans on their Twitter accounts. Social media analyst Matt Navarra was one of the first to do so, noting that accounts need to be either Twitter Blue-verified or a verified organization to continue running ads.

This being Twitter, there is of course plenty of confusion. Can businesses actually pay the $8 per month for a normal blue checkmark, for example? The email appears to suggest so, but it will be interesting to see how many go that route and if they do, whether Twitter will take any action against them.

Twitter and owner Elon Musk clearly want businesses to pay $1,000 a month or more, so the prospect of them choosing to pay $8 instead is unlikely to go down all that well.

The theory behind Twitter's move might not be all that bad, however. Having accounts be verified before they can run ads could potentially prevent the spreading of false information or scams, but only if its verification process actually verified identities. Otherwise, anyone with a credit card would have access to Twitter's ad platform regardless.

Avoiding scams on Twitter has become increasingly difficult since Musk's $44 billion buyout in late 2020. All we'll say is this — if someone is advertising Apple's best iPhone at a price that seems too good to be true, it probably is. 

Troubled social network Twitter has announced changes to the way it will deal with tweets that break its rules, saying that we can expect those posts to be labeled as such and be seen by fewer people.

The move, which was announced both via the Twitter Safety account and on the Twitter blog, means that people who break Twitter's policies will likely find that their tweets reach fewer people and are engaged with less as a result, although Twitter won't take action beyond that. The account won't be banned, for example, and the tweet itself won't be deleted.

As a result, anyone who has the link to the tweet will be able to see it and, presumably, the tweet will be available when viewing the poster's profile.

"Freedom of Speech, Not Reach"

In its announcement blog post, Twitter made it clear that its mission "is to promote and protect the public conversation." That means that it believes "users have the right to express their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship."

However, the post goes on to say that Twitter believes that it has a responsibility to keep people safe on its platform.

"These beliefs are the foundation of Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach - our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable," the company says.

"Starting soon, we will add publicly visible labels to Tweets identified as potentially violating our policies letting you know we’ve limited their visibility," Twitter says, adding that it believes that the approach is more transparent than other approaches.

Tweets that have these labels applied won't have ads placed alongside them either, perhaps in an attempt to appease advertisers who remain concerned about the kinds of content available on Twitter since Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout in 2022.

Twitter also says that it's working to allow people to appeal a label if they want to.

This will all apply to Twitter's app and website and is something that will only have been possible thanks to the fact there are no third-party apps available. That change came when Twitter killed off its API, leaving the official Twitter app as the only game in town. That's the case no matter what device you're using and even the very best iPhone is limited to Twitter's first-party app today.

Twitter, which once only allowed you to send messages with a maximum of 180 characters, now allows much more. Much, much more.

In fact, Twitter Blue subscribers can now send tweets that have more characters in them than your average blog post. More than the average newsletter as well. 10,000 of them to be exact.

Tweets aren't only getting longer, they're also getting rich text of sorts with Twitter confirming that Blue subscribers will be able to add bold and italic formatting to messages posted to the service.

How many?!

Twitter announced the change via its Twitter Write account, saying that "Twitter now supports Tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, with bold and italic text formatting." But that only applies to people who pay for Twitter Blue of course, meaning those of us who don't pay will be left with the current 280-character limit.

This comes as Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk finds himself in a war of words with newsletter outfit Substack. Twitter was accused of blocking links to Substack recently, with Musk claiming that the company was taking data from Twitter with the intent of using it to launch a competitor.

The irony of Twitter now launching tweets that effectively allow people to publish whole newsletters to its platform hasn't been lost on some.

Substack's Twitter competitor, called Notes, is already live but has so far enjoyed limited success.

Newsletters have become a great way for creators to keep in contact with their readers and have been around for decades. And while you can't read tweets, all the best e-readers have ways to get email newsletters as well — making them a great way to read long-form content without staring at your iPhone's screen any longer than you have to.

As for Twitter, it remains to be seen how many 10,000-character-long tweets actually get published on the platform.

After saying it would do it, then delaying it, Twitter seems to have finally called time on its free API and broken some apps in the process.

Twitter had originally said that it would kill off its free API in February but it later delayed the move without telling anyone when it planned to flick the switch.

It seems that the day has now come, with a number of developers reporting that the API is no longer working.

A bug or a feature?

The real question is whether this is a planned take-down of the API or if something is broken. Twitter has suffered plenty of outages and strange goings-on since Elon Musk's $44 billion buyout towards the end of 2022. And with Twitter's developer relations team decimated it's proving difficult for those who used the API to confirm what's happening.

Engadget reports that some developers have at least received an email saying that they have "been suspended from accessing the Twitter API."

There are plenty of apps and services that appear to have been impacted as a result of the API situation. Engadget reports that embedded tweets are proving problematic for newsletter outfit Substack, while even companies willing to pay for API access are having issues.

Mashable notes that Echobox developers reached out to Twitter about paying for API access but have not received any response. “We still have had no response from Twitter’s enterprise sales team and our access to the API was cut off without notice yesterday,” Echobox said in a blog post.

This isn't the first time that the API situation has been problematic for Twitter and the companies that rely on it, of course. Twitter famously stopped third-party apps from hooking into its API and replacing its core functionality, killing Tweetbot, Aviary, and countless other apps and businesses in the process. Now, whether you're using a years-old iPhone SE or picked up the best iPhone Apple makes, you'll have to use the official app to get your Twitter fix.

April 1 was supposed to be the end of the legacy verified checkmark, but for many nothing changed. Now, confusion reigns about what comes next with Twitter making it harder for people to tell which verified users have legacy accounts and who paid for that checkmark.

It might appear as if Twitter has delayed the removal of legacy checkmarks, but that hasn't been confirmed as yet. It also comes as Musk confirmed that some accounts will lose their checkmarks in double-quick time if they say they don't intend to pay for Twitter Blue.

The number of people who have so far refused to pay up include basketball megastar LeBron James, Star Trek legend William Shatner, and others.

Verified or not, nobody knows

The weekend saw mass confusion about whether people would see their checkmarks disappear as of that Twitter-imposed April 1 deadline. Musk said in a tweet that people would be given a period of grace before the checkmarks went away. He also said that if people say they won't pay, "we will remove it."

Musk then deleted the tweet, but not before screenshots were taken for posterity. It isn't clear why Musk deleted the tweet — was he wrong, or does he not understand his own system? Either seems equally possible.

As if the verification system wasn't already confusing enough, Twitter also took the opportunity to change how it describes its checkmarks.

Previously, the checkmark's label said that the account was either a legacy one or "verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.”

That's now changed, with all accounts saying “this account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.” The change means it's effectively impossible to know why an account has a checkmark.

For now, verified users are left in limbo. Many legacy checkmarks remain and seem likely to do so for a little while yet. For now, we'd suggest just ignoring the noise — all the very best headphones can help there — and seeing how things shake out. 

The Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk says that the For You page is changing, and it'll mean that you're likely to see more verified accounts than ever before.

That's because Musk's Twitter will soon only recommend tweets from people who have a verified account, whether that's via Twitter Blue or because they're a business or government entity. Everyone else? Your tweets won't appear organically as part of the Twitter algorithm.

Twitter has historically pushed its algorithm as a growth and engagement engine, but that will all change on April 15 when the change takes place.

No recommendations for you!

Musk announced the change via a post on Twitter, saying that "only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations" as of the middle of April.

Further, Musk also confirmed that only those who have a verified account will be able to vote on polls from the same date. The reason? Musk says that both changes are coming in an attempt to try and deal with "AI bot swarms."

One way to make sure that you have more chance of people seeing your tweets will be to sign up for Twitter Blue.  Priced at $8 per month or $84 per year, in-app when bought on the web, or $11 per month or $114.99 per year when bought via the App Store, Twitter Blue gives you that all-important verified checkmark. You'll also get a handful of other features that are neither here nor there, too.

At that price, it's debatable how many people will sign up for Twitter Blue just to get in on the act. Save your money and you'll be on your way to buying even Apple's best iPhone when the new models arrive this fall. We'd wager an iPhone 15 is probably a better way to spend that money anyway.

Twitter is about to pull the plug on what is likely its most controversial change yet, as the company moves to sunset its legacy verified program, starting April 1. 

Who can get verified on Twitter and why has been a huge talking point ever since Elon Musk bought the platform last year. Musk has made vocal his opposition to the current policy, while also touting plans to turn Twitter into a profitable business again. To that end, Twitter has made some massive changes. Where previously users could only get verified by being notable or important based on Twitter's guidelines, you can now buy a Twitter verification simply by subscribing to Twitter Blue. For a while now, we've had lots of "legacy" verified accounts and Twitter Blue subscribers all running around the Twittersphere with the same blue tick, as of April 1, that will come to an end.  

"On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks," the company announced this week. "To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue."

I'm feeling (Twitter) Blue

As you might expect, the reaction to such a controversial change has been hugely polarising. Some folks have lauded the change, seemingly gleeful at the downfall of the Twitter verified elite on the platform. However, plenty see the change as a win for other reasons.  

"Thank you for doing this. I’m not even being sarcastic," said Mike Drucker. "Some users on Twitter were starting to confuse me for the type of person who’d pay $8 a month to feel special. It was embarrassing."

"“Paid for Twitter blue” has become an extremely reliable predictor of quality, just not in the way that Elon meant," tech analyst Benedict Evans noted.

The influx of accounts with Twitter Blue checkmarks has even seen the rise of the infamous "this mf paid for twitter" mannequin meme. Twitter seems to know about this and is reportedly going to let users hide their blue checkmark if they'd like to enjoy Twitter Blue's features without the accompanying public ridicule. 

Twitter is also rolling out its Twitter Blue subscription globally so that everyone on the platform will be able to buy it. Features include prioritized ranking in conversation, 50% fewer ads, longer tweets, an edit button, and more. However, some of these features, notably fewer ads and ranking priority, haven't actually rolled out yet. Given Twitter's recent track record of unsuccessfully rolling out new features, whether these ever actually arrive is anyone's guess. 

Twitter Blue's initial launch was plagued by users buying blue ticks and impersonating high-profile brands. Most famously, one user impersonating Big Pharma brand Eli Lilly announced "We are excited to announce insulin is free now," wiping billions of dollars from the company's market cap and eventually leading to an insulin price cap of $35 a month which the company announced at the start of March.  

Popular Twitter clients, Tweetbot and Twitterrific, are offering subscribers of their third-party Twitter applications refunds after being shut down by Elon Musk. 

Back in January, Twitter, under new ownership from Musk, decided to ban all third-party clients from connecting to its servers. This meant that overnight, popular applications like Tapbots’ Tweetbot and Iconfactory’s Twitterrific stopped working. 

For many Twitter users, their main Twitter client was gone and a move to the official Twitter app on iOS was the only option. Thousands of Tweetbot and Twitterific subscribers paid annually for their subscriptions despite losing access.

With the apps no longer functioning, pro-rated refunds will automatically be issued to subscribers next month, although you might want to think twice before accepting this refund as the businesses have been heavily impacted by a loss of income stream with no warning overnight. 

As reported by John Gruber for Daring Fireball, these refunds will largely be paid out by the developers themselves which means that after being punished by Twitter’s laughable decisions under Musk they must now fork out from their own pockets.

How to decline the refund

Teaming up, Tweetbot and Twitterrific are offering customers who are due a refund multiple options. Here’s how to choose what option you’d like to take, although I’ll be declining my refund. 

Refunds will be issued automatically, so this decision is purely based on your experience with the applications and whether or not you want to support the developers through a potentially devastating period for businesses. For those that do nothing, the pro-rated refund will be processed on March 28. 

With the apps now essentially dead, the developers have no way of reaching out to customers and so there’s a real chance that very few people open the app and opt to decline the refund. Apple will require Tapbots and Iconfactory to pay between 70% and 85% of each refund depending on the length of the subscription. 

Twitter is once again experiencing problems as users face a 'Welcome to Twitter' message on their feeds rather than tweets and images. Downdetector has seen a massive spike in reports of Twitter outages in the last hour. 61% report an issue with the app, while the rest say it's the website, showing this is clearly a universal issue not limited to one platform or operating system. Outages are being reported in both the U.S. and the UK, showing this also appears to be a global issue.

The Welcome message seems to be interchangeable with a 'something went wrong' message, suggesting that Twitter is aware of the issue. The for you page is now showing tweets as well, although the tweets are old. Users are also reporting issues on mobile.

Twitter down – again

This is an increasing phenomenon after Elon Musk took over the platform, and comes just after the Billionaire laid off some of his most dedicated Twitter team. Including, for some reason, Esther C who slept on the social networks floor to get more work done.

Given that there are now far fewer people working in the Twitter offices, it's going to be curious to see how long it takes the social network to sort out this latest downtime. Previously, issues have hung around for a few hours as the Twitter team scrambled frantically to fix the problems.

It takes that much longer now because not only did Musk lay off massive numbers of his staff, but many left after he bought the network. Key members of staff left, leaving many to predict that Twitter does not have long left before it becomes completely broken – and today's latest issues could be more evidence that the end is coming.

Whatever happens, there are other options for Twitter users. There's Mastodon, although it can be a little technical for some. Hive social is another Twitter alike, and there's even Donald Trump's own Truth Social, should you be that way inclined. And like orange face paint.

We'll update this story as it develops.

Twitter has confirmed that it is now only offering SMS-based two-factor authentication as an option to people who pay for its Twitter Blue subscription service.

In a blog post, the company confirmed that the change would kick in on March 20. After that date anyone who already has SMS two-factor authentication enabled will see it disabled, meaning they'll have no second factor available to them. The security of their Twitter account will be severely impacted as a result.

The move comes as Twitter is reportedly losing money hand over fist, with owner and CEO Elon Musk thought to be looking for ways to save cash where possible. Charging people for SMS-based 2FA appears to be his latest idea.

So insecure

It's important to use two-factor authentication because it ensures that even if someone has your username and password, they won't be able to access your account or data. In the case of SMS and Twitter, logging into the social network would trigger a text message to be sent to a trusted phone number, authentication code in tow.

Twitter would then require that the code be plugged into the log-in form, or else access wouldn't be granted. Now, that won't happen unless you pay at least $8 monthly for Twitter Blue.

However, SMS-based two-factor authentication is problematic. Twitter says it's had an issue with bad actors and abuse, but the real problem is that it isn't all that secure.

With SMS handling two-factor authentication, someone only needs access to that phone in order to intercept the code generated by sites like Twitter. That could mean stealing a phone or, more likely, some sort of SIM swap attack. 

As a result, physical security keys or software code generators are a better option.  Some of the best hardware security keys even have a wireless component, too. In the case of Twitter, a software two-factor authentication solution is a great option; for most people, it happens to be the only one as well. Thankfully, these options are remaining free, but as Twitter's own Transparency reports reveal 75% of all of its users are SMS 2FA users and will need to change their settings or cough up. 

A shocking new inside report claims that Elon Musk demanded his engineers fix Twitter's algorithm in his favor or risk losing their jobs after a Super Bowl tweet by Joe Biden got more likes than his own. 

Platformer, a reliable outlet with proven inside knowledge of Twitter's dealings, reports that Musk's cousin James Musk pinged engineers with an urgent message at 2:36 am on Monday. 

"When bleary-eyed engineers began to log on to their laptops, the nature of the emergency became clear: Elon Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Joe Biden’s," the report reveals.

Biden's tweet generated almost 29 million impressions, over 20 million more than Musk's own tweet, which he deleted. 

Angry Elon

"In the wake of those losses — the Eagles to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Musk to the president of the United States — Twitter’s CEO flew his private jet back to the Bay Area on Sunday night to demand answers from his team," according to Platformer. 

Later that day, all of Twitter was bombarded with tweets by Elon Musk in the For You section of the timeline, turns out this was on purpose. Platformer says that " after Musk threatened to fire his remaining engineers, they built a system designed to ensure that Musk — and Musk alone — benefits from previously unheard-of promotion of his tweets to the entire user base."

Engineers, speaking with Musk in person, posited that his engagement may be down because he has been blocked and muted by so many people since taking over the company, however, "there were also legitimate technical reasons", with Musk's tweets online showing up "about half the time that some engineers thought they should, according to some internal estimates." 

New code deployed to Twitter apparently now "automatically greenlights" all of Musk's tweets, bypassing its content filters and artificially boosting his tweets "by a factor of 1,000 – a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed."

While Musk has hinted that the changes might be tweaked, and has even joked, posting memes about how much everyone is seeing his content, the upshot is that Twitter's For You timeline, even now, remains largely unusable.

One employee told Platformer that Musk "bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management" but has since turned around and now "manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice."

"Once again, Elon Musk's fragile ego is getting the better of him, and he wants to maintain his role as the main character of Twitter and play God with the algorithm," social media expert Matt Navarra told iMore on Wednesday. Navarra says these shenanigans aren't good for either Twitter or its users but aren't all that surprising. He described the reported move from Musk as "hugely self-serving" and told us it wouldn't benefit anyone except himself. Navarra doesn't think that this will drive users away from Twitter, however, but rather could see more users try to block and filter out his content, ironically exacerbating the problem he's trying to solve. He also believes that this could reduce goodwill towards Twitter as a platform from stakeholders such as advertisers. "I don't think it's going to drive millions of users away instantly," he said, "but I think it's going to have a network effect on people's views of the platform." 

Twitter's algorithm is so broken that users have discovered they can increase and improve engagement with their tweets by locking their accounts, and even CEO Elon Musk has had to test it out in order to find out what's going on. 

Musk took to Twitter on Wednesday stating "Made my account private until tomorrow morning to test whether you see my private tweets more than my public ones." 

This all started after Ian Miles Cheong posted the results of an experiment conducted on Twitter, revealing that setting your account to private "vastly improves your reach by a factor of 5x." Musk commented stating that the findings were "extremely concerning." He reiterated the sentiment in a response to Libs of TikTok on Twitter after it stated "put my account on private because apparently that’s the only way people will see your tweets." Musk said "something is wrong" and elsewhere "something fundamental is wrong" regarding the issue. 

Elon goes private

About 24 hours after he posted about his own experiment, Musk revealed the change "helped identify some issues with the system" that should be addressed by next week. It makes you wonder why Elon wouldn't rather consult with the team of engineers at Twitter regarding the issue. One commenter described it as "genuinely hysterical" that Twitter's algorithm "is in such a poor state to the point the CEO has to do field experiments" rather than consult the engineering department.

Yet "going private" is actually quite a well-established way of growing online. Overnight, the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz took to Twitter and resurfaced her 2018 article for The Atlantic which revealed how influencers on platforms like Instagram were using account privacy to spur growth. "People go private because they get more followers when a follower sends a post to their friends and that person has to follow the account in order to see. It’s that simple," one social media specialist told her.

However, Musk's response seems to suggest he doesn't think that this is the way Twitter should operate, so it may be that he's planning to alter this going forward. 

Well, it's the end of an era. The world of third-party Twitter clients is officially dead.

Twitter has been sending signals that it could pull the plug on third-party Twitter apps for over a week now. Last week, a number of third-party clients like Tweetbot and Twitterrific started noticing issues with their connection with Twitter. Users had problems using the apps as well.

The apps were essentially broken for days, without a word from Twitter. Then, on Tuesday, the Twitter developer account announced that it was "enforcing its long-standing API rules. That may result in some apps not working."

Developers of third-party clients quickly pointed out that it was unclear what rules Twitter was claiming the apps were breaking and they still had not gotten those questions answered by the company.

Well, it appears that those questions have been answered with a big middle finger.

Twitter bans third-party clients

As reported by Engadget, Twitter has added a clause to its developer agreement that effectively kills off third-party clients.

The company has added a clause to "the 'restrictions' section of Twitter’s developer agreement was updated Thursday with a clause banning 'use or access the Licensed Materials to create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.' The addition is the only substantive change to the 5,000-word agreement."

As a result of the clause, Twitterrific, one of the most popular Twitter clients, has discontinued the app and already pulled it from the iOS and macOS App Stores. Tweetbot has already shifted its focus to building its upcoming Mastodon client.

It seems that Twitter wants everyone to use its official app, where Elon Musk can serve you ads and push you to sign up for Twitter Blue, the company's paid subscription service.

We keep living in a new era of Twitter, for better or wo-worse it's definitely worse.