X is removing ability to hide checkmarks for premium users
Last year, Elon Musk-owned social network X rolled out a feature for paid users to hide their checkmarks from others. Now, the company is sending notifications to users saying that…
Threads dropped the ball on real-time news as the NYC/NJ earthquake didn’t trend until the afternoon
Despite its similarities, Instagram Threads is no X. At least, not yet. The text-focused social network — and Meta’s answer to Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter — missed a moment…
X warns that you might lose followers as it does another bot sweep
X is warning users they may see a reduction in their follower counts as the company attempts to clear the network of some spammers and bots in a large sweep.…
X is testing NSFW adult communities, according to screenshots
X is living up to its name. The platform, formerly Twitter, is working on an addition to its Communities feature that would let X users create groups for X-rated material,…
Elon Musk says all Premium subscribers on X will gain access to AI chatbot Grok this week
Following Elon Musk’s xAI’s move to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X owner on Tuesday said that the company formerly known as Twitter will…
Threads is adding live scores for sports games, starting with the NBA
Threads, the Twitter-like app from Instagram, is adding live scores for sports games. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday that Threads has started testing live scores for NBA games,…
X launches top up packs for its developer API
Social network X (formerly Twitter) launched new top-up packs for its developer API program on Tuesday. These paid upgrades will allow developers to fetch roughly 10,000 posts for $100 if…
Threads is rolling out trending topics to all users in the US
Threads, the Twitter-like app from Instagram, is rolling out its “trending now” feature widely to all users in the U.S. The official rollout comes a month after the app started…
Don Lemon says Elon Musk has canceled his show on X
Don Lemon announced on Wednesday that his show on X (formerly Twitter) has been canceled by Elon Musk. Lemon, a former CNN anchor, says Musk cancelled the show hours after…
Bluesky launches Ozone, a tool that lets users create and run their own independent moderation services
Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky announced today that it’s open sourcing Ozone, a tool that lets individuals and teams collaboratively review and label content on the network. The company plans to open…
Bluesky scoops up the developer of popular third-party app, Graysky
Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky is adding to its ranks by scooping up a member of its developer community. London-based software engineer Samuel Newman, who built the well-received third-party Bluesky client,…
X allows Premium+ users and organizations to publish articles
X announced a new long-form post format called Articles today. The feature, which is only available to Premium+ subscribers and verified organizations, lets users publish posts with text formatting, other…
Threads now lets all users save drafts and take photos within the app
Threads, the Twitter-like app from Instagram, is rolling out the ability for users to save a draft and take photos within the app. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the features…
X’s new calling feature hurts your privacy — here’s how to switch it off
In his quest to turn a simple and functioning Twitter app into X, the everything app that doesn’t do anything very well, Elon Musk launched audio and video calling on…
Former Twitter CEO sues Elon Musk
Another day, another lawsuit involving Elon Musk. Four former Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, sued Musk on Monday, alleging that they’re owed over $128 million in severance payments. When…
TechCrunch Space: Good night, Odysseus
Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. SpaceX is launching its Transporter-10 rideshare mission today. These are always really fun to track because they carry dozens of payloads, including from…
X goes to court in Elon Musk’s war against an anti-hate research org
Elon Musk’s crusade against the extremism research organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) will have its day in court on Thursday. Elon Musk’s X sued the CCDH last…
Threads widens the gap with X, with triple the daily downloads on iOS
Although an app’s downloads aren’t an exact proxy for usage, they can hint at where the market is headed. And in the case of the alt-Twitter wars, the app winning…
Musk’s X withholds accounts, tweets in India to obey orders
X, formerly known as Twitter, said Wednesday it is withholding specific accounts and posts in India, action it said the firm disagrees with, in response to executive orders issued by…
Yes, Threads is running a fact-checking program, but the system isn’t fully rolled out
Threads, Meta’s Twitter-like service and competitor to X, may be distancing itself from politics, but that doesn’t mean it won’t try to tackle the misinformation that spreads across social media…
As Threads deprioritizes politics, Bluesky’s CEO touts custom feeds and user choice in social media
Meta is in hot water after announcing plans to remove politics from its recommendations across Instagram and Threads, its new Twitter-like app for text-based posts. That leaves a window of…
Twitter alternative Bluesky shows off custom Super Bowl feeds (both with and without Taylor Swift)
Twitter/X alternative Bluesky is gearing up for one of the biggest weekends in social media with the launch of custom feeds prepped for Super Bowl fans. One feed focuses on…
Social networks are getting stingy with their data, leaving third-party developers in the lurch
2023 was the year social networks realized that they were sitting on massive troves of data. And some companies, such as Twitter (now X) and Reddit, decided to change their…
How Twitter’s descent into chaos is paving the way for a new web
The post-Twitter era has spurred the development and further growth of numerous social networks that prioritize brief posts, from open source standbys like Mastodon to new decentralized concepts like Bluesky,…
As Bluesky opens to the public, CEO Jay Graber faces her biggest challenge yet
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says that her job is like being a substitute teacher. It’s not what you’d expect from the head of an experimental, up-and-coming social platform, but it…
Senate hearing with five social media CEOs was a missed opportunity
Five social media CEOs were sworn in on Wednesday for what could have been the most eventful children’s online safety hearing yet. But even with some of tech’s most powerful…
Amid a fairly flat European market, Giant Ventures raises $250M to invest transatlantically
Giant Ventures, a UK-based VC that has made a habit of investing on both sides of the Atlantic, is launching two new funds, totalling $250 million. It’s previous fund had totalled…
The Taylor Swift deepfake debacle was frustratingly preventable
You know you’ve screwed up when you’ve simultaneously angered the White House, the TIME Person of the Year, and pop culture’s most rabid fanbase. That’s what happened last week to…
CEOs from Meta, TikTok, Snap, X and Discord head to Congress for kids’ online safety hearing
CEOs from some of the biggest social platforms will appear before Congress on Wednesday to defend their companies against mounting criticism that they have done too little to protect kids…
Y Combinator President Garry Tan publishes a menacing tweet before deleting it, apologizing: “Die slow motherf*ckers”
Garry Tan, whose success in Silicon Valley has likely inspired many of the founders he mentors, is once again attracting attention for his posts on the social platform X. On…
X adds support for passkeys on iOS after removing SMS 2FA support last year
X, formerly Twitter, today announced support for passkeys, a new and more secure login method than traditional passwords, which will become an option for U.S. users on iOS devices. The…
Fidelity marks down X valuation by 71.5%
Mutual fund company Fidelity has marked down its investment in X holdings — the parent company of X (formerly Twitter) owned by Elon Musk — by 71.5% from the original…
Elon Musk’s X suffered yet another global outage
Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered an outage globally earlier Thursday that lasted for more than an hour. The error, the cause of which remains…