Social Media

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: After Elon Musk flouted permit rules and angered nearby residents with a massive, flashing “X” atop his social media company’s San Francisco headquarters, workers were seen dismantling the sign Monday. At 9 a.m., SFGATE saw two workers in lifts detangling wires from the structure’s metal frame and pulling away its light-up panels. By noon, the …

The New York Times reports: Elon Musk has over the last year threatened legal action against tech competitors, employees and people who use Twitter, which he owns. Now he is also taking aim at an organization that studies hate speech and misinformation on social media. X Corp., the parent company of the social media company, sent a letter on July …

The Insider reports: San Francisco authorities say they still can’t access X, formally Twitter’s, headquarters to inspect Elon Musk’s new sign. According to complaints filed by the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, the company denied a San Francisco city representative access to the building on Friday and Saturday when they attempted to inspect the new light-up structure. A Twitter …

The Daily Beast reports: Kanye West’s account on X, aka Elon Musk’s newly-rebranded Twitter, was reinstated on Saturday months after the rapper was suspended for violating company policy with an antisemitic post. While West, who goes by Ye, won’t be able to monetize his account, X brought back his profile after “receiving reassurance that he wouldn’t use the platform to …

The Associated Press reports: The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters. City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and …

Reuters reports: Meta Platforms executives are heavily focused on boosting retention on their new Twitter rival Threads, after the app lost more than half of its users in the weeks following its buzzy launch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday. Retention of users on the text-based app was better than executives had expected, though it was “not perfect,” said …

The Daily Beast reports: Elon Musk’s radical rebranding of Twitter as “X” led to the site being blocked in Indonesia on Tuesday under the country’s strict laws restricting pornography and gambling. The Southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Communication and Informatics said the block had to do with the domain “X.com,” which had previously been used to host content that violated …

Bloomberg News reports: It’s rare for corporate brands to become so intertwined with everyday conversation that they become verbs. It’s rarer still for the owner of such a brand to announce plans to intentionally destroy it. On Sunday, in the middle of a quiet summer weekend, Elon Musk decreed that Twitter’s product name would be changed to “X,” and that …

The Messenger reports: Elon Musk’s sudden move to rebrand Twitter as X may run into the unyielding wall of trademark law — but not because its logo looks suspiciously familiar to a variety of typeface fonts. Instead, the problem may be in the X brand itself, legal experts told The Messenger. Microsoft’s trademark application on the brand mark ‘X’ was …

The Guardian reports: Elon Musk has revealed a new logo for Twitter, choosing a “minimalist art deco” X as part of a rebrand of the platform. The Twitter owner indicated the design would be altered, tweeting that it “probably changes later, certainly will be refined.” Twitter’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, confirmed the choice on Monday by tweeting the design and writing: …

Bloomberg News reports: Twitter Inc. owner Elon Musk said the social media company will change its logo soon, getting rid of the blue bird that’s long been its signature. “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make go live worldwide tomorrow,” Musk tweeted late Saturday. Roughly six months after he acquired Twitter for $44 billion, he merged …

The Hill reports: House Republicans asked Meta Monday about content moderation on its new platform Threads, citing concerns about free speech violations. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to send documents about Threads’ content moderation practices to the committee by the end of July. Jordan cited a subpoena sent to Meta …

Bloomberg News reports: Twitter owner Elon Musk said the company still has a negative cash flow because of its heavy debt load and a roughly 50% drop in advertising revenue. The social media site will “need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Musk said in a tweet. Advertiser spending dropped 89% to $7.6 …

The Associated Press reports: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted a temporary stay of a July 4 order putting sweeping limitations on the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies. The stay was granted by a panel of 5th Circuit judges, which includes Clinton-appointee Carl E. Stewart, Obama-appointee James E. Graves and Trump-appointee Andrew S. Oldham. Oldham …

The Washington Post reports: On Thursday, Twitter announced that it would begin sharing ad revenue with content creators on its platform for the first time. But the offer won’t apply to all creators. The first beneficiaries appear to be high-profile far-right influencers who tweeted before the announcement how much they’ve earned as part of the program. Ian Miles Cheong, Benny …

Reuters reports: Twitter Inc on Wednesday was hit with a lawsuit accusing it of refusing to pay at least $500 million in promised severance to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk acquired the company. Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitter’s employee benefits programs as its “head of total rewards” before she was laid off in January, filed …

TechCrunch reports: Recently hired Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is pushing back at reports that Twitter traffic is tanking as a result of the July 5th launch of a new competitor, Instagram Threads. But the company does seem to be concerned about the potential threat posed by Meta’s rival, now topping 100 million users. On Monday, users reported that Twitter seems …

Bloomberg News reports: A federal judge in Louisiana denied a request by the US government to delay an order he imposed last week banning federal agencies and officials from communicating with social media companies. The Justice Department is expected to ask the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene after US District Court Judge Terry Doughty on Monday refused …

CNBC reports: User traffic on Twitter has slowed since the launch of Meta’s text-based platform Threads, which has already surpassed 100 million sign-ups since its debut last week. “Threads reached 100 million sign ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!” Meta CEO Mark …

The Daily Beast reports: Twitter owner Elon Musk abandoned all subtlety Sunday night as his beef with rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg reached a head, with the Tesla CEO asking for a “literal dick measuring contest” between the tech titans. The awkward request comes after Zuckerberg’s Meta debuted a Twitter clone, called Threads, that puts the original microblogging site in danger …