Twitter.now enters early access as X Corp. lawsuit over name proceeds

Ars Technica reported that X sued the company last year and asked a Delaware judge to issue an injunction to stop Operation Bluebird from launching a social media platform called Twitter. Operation Bluebird argued in a petition that X had let go of trademarks like 'Twitter' and 'Tweet.'

In a LinkedIn post, Coates said the company is not trying to recreate Twitter. 'When X Corp. retired the Twitter brand, we saw an opportunity to build something new: a public square organized around trust, transparency, and user choice,' he said. He added that Twitter.now is not an attempt to recreate the old platform, but a different service with trust signals that provide context for what users see and tools that allow people, not an opaque algorithm, to decide how much credibility and noise reach their feeds.

The site is currently in testing, and early access costs $20. On its home page, the company says it is using an AI system called VERA that gauges posts, checks claims, gives users the source of the claims, the context, and attaches a trust score. Users will be able to set their preferred trust score to filter out low-trust posts.

All social networks struggle with moderation. As user numbers ramp up, platforms often find themselves forced to choose sides, as the original Twitter had to do many times before it was acquired by Elon Musk. Bluesky has lately been criticized for its moderation as well.

Operation Bluebird told TechCrunch it aims to tackle moderation challenges using the VERA verification engine, which is in its initial version. 'VERA 2.0, with expanded capabilities, is on the near-term roadmap, where the user will be able to set their app to only see posts above the threshold they choose,' the company said in an emailed statement.