Outlining the harsh reality...
X Marks The End
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/me...0eb089/raw?utm_term=1690244421853473db90eb089
Bye bye, birdie.
Twitter, the text-based social media platform that played an outsized role on society by serving as a digital town square, was killed by its unhinged owner
Elon Musk on Sunday. It was 17 years old.
A zombie Twitter, known only as
X, reluctantly endures. A warped and disfigured platform, X marches on like a White Walker, an ugly shell of its former self under the command of a loathsome leader.
Whereas Twitter was once a fountain of authoritative information, X is a platform where trolls can pay a small fee to have their ugly content boosted ahead of reputable sources.
X is a platform where identity verification no longer exists and impersonation is only a paid subscription away.
X is a platform where journalists are banned and smeared while the most repellant and dishonest voices are elevated.
X is a platform where the rules are unclear and content moderation is largely an idea of the past.
X is a platform where the most important and consequential decisions are made on a whim and can happen without any warning.
And X is a platform where vital infrastructure is crumbling and the most basic of features often fail to function.
X might resemble Twitter. It might occupy the same address on the internet that Twitter once did. But make no mistake, it is not the same platform it once was — even as recently as nine months ago, when Musk took over, quickly decapitated the former leadership, and threw the company into chaos and turmoil.
That platform has ceased to be. It arguably died some time ago, before it was announced to the public by way of a sudden and disorderly rebranding.
In many ways, Musk has done to Twitter what
Donald Trump did to the
Republican Party: wholly remade it in his own image. At least, with Musk, the deformed entity is getting a different name, one that allows the public to perhaps separate Twitter from what Musk has transformed it into.
X will, of course, inherit all of Twitter's business problems. Musk is the entity that has proven toxic to advertisers and much of the user base, not the widely recognized bird logo. How the billionaire ultimately turns that ship around is unclear, particularly as he faces new competition from
Mark Zuckerberg and
Threads.
So far, however, there is little hope Musk will be able to successfully steer the ship out of iceberg-ridden waters. He is, after all, the captain who led the ship into them — all while manically laughing alongside his inner circle while standing at the wheel.
THE SIDE BAR
- Elon Musk's decision to turn Twitter into X is set to wipe out billions in brand value, Aisha Counts and Jesse Levine report. (Bloomberg)
- "The Twitter bird was more than just a logo; it also dovetailed with the language used to describe the service," Jon Porter notes in his eulogy to the iconic branding. (The Verge)
- Inside Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, conference rooms have been "renamed to words with X in them, including 'eXposure,' 'eXult' and 's3Xy,'" Ryan Mac and Tiffany Hsu report. (NYT)
- Linda Yaccarino tries to rally employees around the inexplicable decision to rebrand the troubled company, telling them in a memo that it needs to embrace the "inventor mindset." (CNBC)
- Todd Spangler points out that the rebranding to X has been off to a "confusing, haphazard start." (Variety)
- Even less functionality: Amid the madness, Twitter also announced it will limit the number of DMs unverified users can send. (NBC News)
- Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg hints he's adding key features to Threads. The Meta boss responded to a user complaining about the lack of a desktop version for the app, teasing that "lots of basic functionality" is headed to the platform "soon." (Threads)
- Analysts believe that Threads could steal advertisers away from Twitter, a platform which is now — correctly — viewed by Madison Avenue as unpredictable and chaotic. (Reuters)
- Reliable Sources is on Threads! Follow the flagship account here; editor Jon Passantino here; and I am posting daily here.
- TikTok is also now getting in on the text-based posts. (The Verge)
- And Mastodon has once again seen a surge as users come to terms with Twitter's death, Sarah Perez reports. (TechCrunch)
