“The public square is open again, and definitely not affiliated with X in any way.”
Twitter is back — well, sort of. A group of folks led by Stephen Coates, the former legal counsel for the original Twitter, have just introduced a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7498375936887881728/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>new version of the social media platform. It’s running right now under the URL Twitter.now.
This has been brewing for a while now, thanks to a startup called Operation Bluebird. The new Twitter is mostly blue, like the original, and features a bird as the official logo. This bird is slightly different from the old one, as it seems to have some additional plumage.
The launch happened as a judge continues to weigh a preliminary injunction requested by Elon Musk and X as part of an ongoing trademark lawsuit. “We have waited months and months to launch, and we are not going to wait anymore,” Coates told Ars Technica.
Operation Bluebird has repeatedly stated that this project is legal because Musk quickly changed the name and logo of Twitter to X upon purchasing it back in 2022. They say that the Twitter identity and IP were abandoned, thus allowing something like the new Twitter to exist. Musk sued the grouptizing big business
This case is still working its way through the court, but District Court Judge Colm Connolly seemed to suggest that it would eventually end in Operation Bluebird’s favor. He noted in a preliminary ruling back in April that he has not “found that X adduced credible evidence of use of ‘tweet’ or the bird logo.”
Coates is operating as the legal counsel for the new entity, the same role he had at Twitter. He recently stated that the judge’s preliminary ruling gave them the go-ahead. “It’s our opinion that X has abandoned its rights on the Twitter and tweet trademarks,” he said.
The new site clearly distances itself from X, stating in its branding that it’s “not affiliated with X Corp.” Coates seconded this sentiment in a LinkedIn post, saying that “the public square is open again, and definitely not affiliated with X in any way. Whatsoever.”
It’s also looking to distance itself from all modern social media apps. “Social media became extraordinarily powerful, but somewhere along the way the people using it lost control,” a mission statement reads. “Algorithms learned to reward outrage. Bots learned to manufacture consensus. Trust became harder to earn and easier to fake. We think there’s a better model.”
To that end, there’s an AI tool in place called Vera, which is short for “veracity engine for real-time analysis.” It automatically fact checks all posts so people know if they’re getting upset over something completely made up. However, the Vera model is still in its early stages and has many kinks to work out.
So the people launching a new Twitter under the name Twitter launched their thing so I signed up. Turns out they have an AI scanning tweets for “truth” and it currently has no idea what it’s doing. Posted something innocuous about Star Wars Zero Company and it essentially blocked it from all feeds.
Now for the bad news. The newly-launched Twitter costs money to use, at least for now. It’s a one-time payment of $20 to get started as a “founder.” That’s half the cost of a single month of X Premium+, for whatever that’s worth.
The platform says it’s charging to “keep bots out and stay independent” as a “paid door proves there’s a real person behind the account.” It did also say that it would “open to more people later.” We don’t know if this means if there’s a free version coming down the pike.
