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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

Banned from Twitter and Facebook, Donald Trump launches his own social network

On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced the launch of his own social network, called "Truth Social". The former US president was banned in January from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which accused him of inciting his supporters to violence on their platforms.

"I created Truth Social and the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) to stand up to the tyranny of the tech giants," Donald Trump said in a statement, adding that his platform should be launched in the first quarter of 2022.

The big Silicon Valley companies have "used their unilateral power to silence dissenting voices in America", he added.

"We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter while your favourite American president has been silenced. This is unacceptable," continued Donald Trump.

89 million followers on Twitter

The Republican billionaire was ousted from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube after his supporters carried out a deadly assault on the Capitol during the ceremony certifying the victory of his rival Joe Biden in the presidential election on 6 January.

Before he was banned, Donald Trump had nearly 89 million followers on Twitter, where he had announced a number of major presidential decisions and thunderous dismissals, as well as 35 million on Facebook and 24 million on Instagram.

Beta version in November

The former president had been promising for months that he would soon be creating his own social network. The "Truth Social" platform will be available in beta version by invitation from November 2021, the press release states.

The billionaire's new media group, TMTG, will also include a video-on-demand service with entertainment programmes and 'non-woke' podcasts.

Text RTS.ch ats/nr

SpaceX gets America flying again

The launch of the SpaceX flight is a powerful symbol for American space exploration. The United States, which for nine years has depended on Russian launchers to send astronauts into space, has no shortage of projects in this area. While Trump is dreaming of the Moon by 2024, Elon Musk already has his sights set on Mars.

Source: La Croix

Blackout Tuesday, a counter-productive initiative?

Launched by the American music industry, this movement in support of anti-racism demonstrators following the death of George Floyd has had unexpected effects. Particularly on Instagram, where black screens have tended to drown out information about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Many Instagram users have noticed that their feed is full of black squares posted on their followers' accounts as a sign of support for the demonstrators against racism and police violence in the United States.

This phenomenon is part of the Blackout Tuesday movement, which itself stemmed "essentially from the #TheShowMustBePaused initiative" launched by a section of the American music industry in reaction to the death of George Floyd, as Variety points out.

The problem, according to this magazine specialising in entertainment news, is that by also using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (#BlackLivesMatter) to accompany their black screens, social network users ultimately "also prevented the circulation of important information about the demonstrations, fundraising and other issues crucial to the movement".

"The intention was good at the outset, but, to put it bluntly, this clearly harms the message," tweeted one activist quoted by Variety, while other users have issued calls to abandon the use of #BlackLivesMatter in this form on Instagram

Source: Courrier International

United States: Donald Trump wants to strip social networks of their protection

On Thursday, the US President signed an executive order aimed at limiting the protection afforded to services such as Twitter and Facebook.

Donald Trump took action on Thursday 28 May. Upset by Twitter's decision to add a link to two messages published on Tuesday stating that it was advancing untruths about the reliability of postal voting, the President of the United States signed an executive order inviting the federal agencies concerned to re-examine the cornerstone on which social networks have developed. This is section 230 (c) of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law, which states that sites and services that allow Internet users to publish messages are not directly responsible for these messages.

"They have the unchecked power to censor, edit, conceal or alter any form of communication between individuals and large public audiences. There is no precedent in American history for such a small number of companies to control such a large sphere of human interaction", the US President railed against the social networking behemoths. The charge is paradoxical, given that the former businessman built part of his political career on his unbridled use of Twitter. His account now has over 80 million followers.

Source: Le Monde

Trump and Twitter: they loved each other so much.

Nothing is going well between the President and the social network, which - for the first time - reported a tweet from Trump. @realDonaldTrump has promised revenge.

Donald Trump has been on a rampage in recent days. Using his favourite weapon, the tweet, he has accused the host of a political programme of murder - without a shred of evidence, he has mocked Joe Biden for wearing a mask, he has retweeted the rantings of a right-wing extremist who called Hillary Clinton a "whore", he has mentioned conspiracy theories accusing Obama of espionage... He has been saying anything and everything to his 80 million followers for years. With the blessing of Twitter, which has always defended his freedom of expression.

Source: Le Point.fr