If you’ve been living under a rock for the last two years (or have just taken a social media break), you might have some questions about Twitter’s 2023 rebrand, X. In languages which adopted the Latin alphabet later, ⟨x⟩ is used for various sounds, in some cases inspired by Latin or its descendants, but in others for unrelated consonants. Since the various Romance pronunciations of ⟨x⟩ can often be written in other ways, the letter becomes available for other sounds. X is the third least frequently used letter in English (after ⟨q⟩ and ⟨z⟩), with a frequency avatrade review of about 0.15% in words.10 There are very few English words that start with ⟨x⟩ (the fewest of any letter). In Old Spanish, ⟨x⟩ came to represent /ʃ/, which it still represents in most Iberian languages and in the orthographies of other languages influenced by Spanish, such as Nahuatl.
BBC News Services
Supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in a series of demonstrations that provoked a government crackdown, in which some demonstrators were injured or killed. The hashtag #IranElection became one of the most-followed topics on Twitter as Mousavi supporters coordinated protests and posted live updates from Tehran. Odeo’s employees were asked about any interesting side projects they had, and engineer Jack Dorsey proposed a short message service (SMS) on which one could share small, blog-like updates with friends. Dorsey sent the first message (“just setting up my twttr”)—called a tweet—on March 21, 2006; the completed version of Twitter debuted July 15, 2006. So, it seems, does TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who was also reported to have met Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the social media company fights plans by US authorities to ban the app.
Data Linked to You
- Today, X is primarily run as a social media service, although Musk has said he wants to turn it into an “everything app” that can be used for shopping, financial transactions, and more, similar to China’s WeChat.
- The company finally became profitable in the last quarter of 2017, when it reported 330 million monthly users.
- The event highlighted Twitter’s emerging role as a social network built around individual personalities as much as institutions.
- In Australia, politicians have gone a step further and approved plans to ban children under 16 from using social media.
- The move came after St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued the company over a parody account.
- I even get alerts whenever the company’s current rude owner posts another dumb opinion – one more thing I didn’t ask for and don’t want.
Twitter launched Spaces, a live audio feature, in May 2021 for accounts with more than 600 followers. Later that year, in November, Dorsey stepped down again and was replaced by chief technology officer Parag Agrawal. In June 2009, state media in Iran reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had secured an easy victory.
Romance languages
The IPO took place in November and raised $1.8 billion, giving the company a market capitalization of $31 billion. In April 2022, Musk signaled plans to merge Twitter with one of his corporate entities, X Holdings, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. After Musk completed the deal to acquire Twitter in October 2022, he took steps to merge Twitter with X and rename the company. The US government claims TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has links to the Chinese state. The Supreme Court is due to hear legal arguments from TikTok in January. Since the 2024 US presidential election, X has cemented its place as the home of political updates about the new Trump administration.
Inevitable West denies accusations of pushing disinformation and inciting abuse or violence. “The purpose of my X account is to be the voice for the silent majority of the Western world,” its creator told me. They refused to share their identity with me when we corresponded, but claim to be “Gen Z” and “not Russian”. Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Advertising revenue fell sharply after many companies withdrew their ads, and the Twitter identity was stripped from the service. She argues that X’s algorithms now “privilege divisive and misleading rhetoric” and suggests that users who post less controversial content have found a reduction in the views. Premium profiles are entitled to more privileges and prominence – and can make money from the engagement they get from other checkmarked profiles. From October, X changed its rules so that instead of basing revenue for individual accounts around ads, it now takes into account likes, shares and comments from other Premium accounts. Although Twitter continued to grow in popularity, it still wasn’t profitable, so the company introduced new features to increase user engagement.
- Since then, we’ve continued to bring sci-fi ideas into reality to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems.
- The hashtag #IranElection became one of the most-followed topics on Twitter as Mousavi supporters coordinated protests and posted live updates from Tehran.
- In 2008, Williams ousted Dorsey as CEO, and two years later Williams was replaced as CEO by Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo.
- In the the UK, the Online Safety Act will soon be enforced, under which companies will have to make commitments to the regulator Ofcom about how they will tackle illegal content and posts that are harmful to children.
Controversy during the Musk era
But the profile responded by saying that they were “actually inciting safety”. Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion at his original proposed price of $54.20 a share. Among his first acts as Twitter’s owner were to lay off about half the company and allow users to purchase the blue check mark verification for $8 a month. In 2009, Twitter introduced a blue check mark to verify the identities of public figures and organizations. The move came after St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued the company over a parody account.
To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct. These factors have led to what many have referred to as a mass “X-odus”, causing huge download spikes for competitors like Bluesky, Mastodon and (very briefly) Instagram Threads. Since then, we’ve continued to bring sci-fi ideas into reality to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems. The developer, X Corp., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below.
From blue ticks to likes: Changes at X
X says that its priority is to protect and defend the user’s voice and it has guidelines about hate, which say that users “may not target others with abuse or harassment or encourage other people to do so”. It is difficult to determine exactly how many real users have chosen to leave X – or indeed if it has grown. When questioned on this, Inevitable West told me that they’d say the same about other religions. Separately, they also said they would never delete their own posts – even when they turn out to be untrue. Andi and other X accounts I’ve corresponded with believe that the changes to X are a good thing, as they now have a reach they could have never anticipated. Certainly, I’ve observed a difference in the variety of posts recommended on the “For You” feed compared with that a year ago.
In English orthography, ⟨x⟩ is typically pronounced as the voiceless consonant cluster /ks/ when it follows the stressed vowel (e.g. ox), and the voiced consonant /ɡz/ when it precedes the stressed vowel (e.g. exam). It is also pronounced /ɡz/ when it precedes a silent ⟨h⟩ and a stressed vowel (e.g. exhaust).9 Due to yod-coalescence, the sequence ⟨xi⟩ before a vowel can be pronounced /kʃ/ resulting from earlier /ksj/, e.g. in -xion(-), -xious(-). Similarly, the sequence ⟨xu⟩ can be pronounced with /kʃ/ (e.g. flexure, sexual) or /ɡʒ/ (in luxury and its derivatives). Due to NG-coalescence, the sequence ⟨nx⟩ can be pronounced /ŋz/ in anxiety. Musk has claimed to be a “free speech absolutist” in the past, but some of his decisions have had the effect of throttling posts critical of him and the changes to the platform.
Bring back Twitter
Political campaigns discovered the value of Twitter as a communication tool. Today, X is primarily run as a social media service, although Musk has said he wants to turn it into an “everything app” that can be used for shopping, financial transactions, and more, similar to China’s WeChat. They say they know of another account making “$25,000” each month – that account allegedly has 500,000 followers and posts “roughly 30” times a day. Changes – including mass layoffs and alterations to moderation policies on issues like political misinformation – started immediately. In 2022, Twitter announced Elon Musk would acquire it and that Musk was to become the company’s sole owner.
He has now been offered a government position, leading a new advisory team called the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). Instead, in her view, it is “not a controlled social science experiment but one we’re all a part of”. Earlier this month, an attack at a German market, which killed five people and injured more than 200, was widely debated on X. Much of the discussion centred around the suspect, a German resident originally from Saudi Arabia. German prosecutors have said the investigation is ongoing, but suggested one potential motive for the attack “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.