he controversies around Elon Musk and X seem endless. Another day passes and another news article about X pops out when accessing the internet. If you were
looking for a complete summary of the most noteworthy events in X’s short history, you’ve come to the right place.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, people have expressed their discontent but have been curious at the same time to see what Tesla’s CEO would do with the platform. The purchase of Twitter was one of Musk’s most impulsive decisions, but he had a vision for it.
X was meant to replace all social media apps and “even your bank”.
It was clear from the beginning that Elon Musk had no intention of keeping Twitter the way it was, with its blue bird and tweets and all. Badges for verified users disappeared, the color scheme of the app changed, and thousands of employees lost their jobs. Musk wanted to turn the social platform into an app that encompasses everything: social media, shopping, and even banking.
However, over the course of one year, X made the headlines for both updates regarding the app and for more controversial topics such as being accused of antisemitism or filing a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
Let’s start with the updates regarding the app. As mentioned, Elon Musk wanted to remove everything that made Twitter – Twitter. One of the first changes he made was the logo, he changed the iconic bird logo with a stylized version of the letter X. Tweets were now called posts and the rules regarding what was allowed to be posted changed.
These moves which signaled the end of an era stirred the anger of the former Twitter users. This is for sure one of the main causes the number of X users decreased significantly from 2023 to 2024. X experienced a drop of approximately 30% in usage in just one year. Even more so, X’s value is said to be worth 71.5% less than what it was worth in 2022 when Elon Musk bought it.
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Despite having made significant changes to make X look less like Twitter, Elon Musk brings X closer to its roots.
Following this aftermath, in 2024 Elon Musk finally started to take the initiative to make X look like the old Twitter. In 2023, Elon Musk intended to make the dark mode option the sole alternative, the default color scheme of X, but ultimately ditched the idea. Another step taken towards an X more looking-like Twitter is the return of headlines to links. This change lasted only a couple of months, from October 2023 until the start of 2024.
Fortune – a clone of YouTube for smart TVs
Another X update that made the headlines is the announcement that the platform is set to launch a TV app. The idea behind this is to encourage people to use not only their phones or computers for content watching but also their big screens for longer videos. Fortune is going to be YouTube’s competition in terms of TV apps.
Unfortunately, X had a few controversies that brought negative attention to the company. One controversial decision taken by Elon Musk, is none other than lifting Kanye West’s ban, after being removed from the platform due to offensive and antisemitic posts.
Not only did Elon Musk support antisemitic posts but he also wrote antisemitic tweets himself on X. This determined companies to stop using X for advertising, including Disney. The antisemitism accusations are not the only reason why companies halted ads on X. IBM, for example, suspended ads on the platform due to their ads being placed right next to Nazi-related content.
Another decision of Elon Musk that caught the public eye is filing a lawsuit against CCDH. According to Elon Musk, CCDH violated X’s terms of service agreement and even hacked the platform. CCDH got on Elon Musk’s bad side when the organization started writing reports about the prevalence of hate speech on X.
However, this lawsuit does not seem to end in Elon Musk’s favor. The federal judge pointed out that the arguments supporting Elon Musk’s claims were not enough for him to win the case. According to the judge, in this situation, a defamation case would’ve seemed more appropriate. The lawsuit hasn’t concluded yet, so X is still fighting against CCDH.
If there is one thing X excels at, that is always picking the public’s attention. Be it app updates, be it controversies, everyone wants to know what the platform is up to. After watching X’s evolution until now, we are more than curious to see what happens next.
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