Social Network Archive

Twitter becomes "X", Elon Musk announces a change of name and logo for the social network

Gone is the little blue bird, 'X' replaces Twitter and the social network becomes accessible from the address 'x.com'.

MEDIA - "X". This is the incomplete message published by Elon Musk in the early hours of Monday 24 July to announce Twitter's new name and logo. The social network is thus living out its final hours in this form and is set to undergo a complete identity change: no more blue and no more bird. At 11am on Monday, the application's logo had already become an "X" on a black background.

Several months ago, the whimsical businessman and SpaceX boss announced that he wanted to turn Twitter into an "X", in homage to his favourite letter, as reported by the online media Numerama.

On Saturday evening, the project gathered pace when the billionaire tweeted: "we'll soon be saying goodbye to the Twitter brand and, gradually, to all the birds".before suggesting that the new logo could be a " X ".

The new logo projected onto the headquarters in San Francisco

On Sunday, playing with suspense, he pinned to his Twitter profile a video posted by a user of the platform showing the current Twitter logo, a blue bird, replaced by a flashing X. "If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we'll put it online worldwide tomorrow".he added.

Linda Yaccarino, Twitter's new CEO since May, has confirmed this project. X will create "a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services and opportunities".she said on her account on Monday, adding: "Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we've only just begun to imagine".. She also posted an image of the new logo projected onto Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco.

After buying Twitter last year for 44 billion dollars, Elon Musk changed the name of the company to "X Corp in April 2023, and regularly mentions its nebulous plans to transform it into a multi-faceted application, with financial services, like WeChat in China.

Tweets become 'X's

In response to a question from an Internet user asking whether Twitter would be accessible from the x.com address, Elon Musk replied: "Of course. X.com was the name and website of the online bank founded by the businessman which later became the online payment service PayPal.

Asked by another user, Musk also said that tweets would be called Xs after the name change.

The name change comes at a time of difficulty for Twitter, where Elon Musk has laid off around half the staff and advertising revenues have halved, according to the billionaire. The social network faces a myriad of competing applications, including newcomer Threads, launched by Meta.

Text by Le HuffPost with AFP

American youtuber Mr.Beast helps 1,000 people regain their sight

The American content creator used his fame and colossal resources to produce a particularly moving video.

With 130 million subscribers, Mr.Beast is constantly coming up with ever more impressive concepts to entertain its community. And this time, he has set himself the challenge of enabling 1,000 blind people to see again, by funding the necessary operations.

Extremely positive reactions on the networks

The people featured in this video have been able to regain their sight thanks to a very specific operation. These are people whose crystalline lens has become opaque, a handicap that the surgeon treats by sucking out the material present in this part of the eye and replacing it with an artificial lens.

In addition to this already financially onerous operation, Mr.Beast also offered some patients in need large sums of money to finance their studies or help their families. He even went so far as to offer a Tesla to one of the young people taking part in the experiment.

The power of this video is that it shows a thousand people with corrected sight, who can finally see the faces of their loved ones and begin a simpler life. For some, this disability was an enormous burden in their lives, preventing them from pursuing their work or living life to the full.

Released two days ago, the video already has 44 million views and has received an extremely positive response on social networks:

Hopefully, more content creators with as much impact will follow suit and take part in this kind of initiative.

Text by radiofrance.fr

Meta threatens to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe

The social networking giant has reiterated the possibility of shutting down its most important services on the Old Continent if it cannot transfer its users' data to its servers in the United States.

The Meta group is trying to put pressure on Europe. In its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Facebook's parent company warned once again that it could "probably" no longer offer its "most important products and services", such as Facebook and Instagram, in Europe if a new framework to regulate the transfer of data from users of its services to its servers in the United States is not adopted or if the company is no longer authorised to use the current agreements "or alternatives", reports the City A.M. media.

"Sharing data between countries or regions of the world is crucial to offering our services and targeted advertising", the company insists. It wishes to process users' personal data on US soil, outside the protection framework provided by the EU with the stricter RGPD.

The group previously used the transatlantic transfer framework known as Privacy Shield, but this treaty was annulled by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2020, due to data protection violations. The EU, which believes that people's data is less protected across the Atlantic, and the US have since been working on a new version of the treaty. Facebook, whose revenues and users are in decline, is currently under investigation by the Irish data protection regulator.

Text by 20minutes.ch (man)