Monday, May 20, 2024

X finally moves away from Twitter.com

The Hill

X finally moves away from Twitter.com

AP Photo/Rick Rycroft
The opening page of X is displayed on a computer and phone in Sydney, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. Australia’s online safety watchdog has fined X, formerly known as Twitter, $385,000 for failing to explain how it tackles child sexual exploitation on the social media platform. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)

The social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has taken the final step to complete it rebrand, ditching Twitter.com.

The site’s URL now reads X.com, a pop-up told users. The change comes about a year and a half after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company and began the changes.

Musk posted early Friday morning that “all core systems are now on X.com.”

Users saw the message when they opened the platform that reads, “We are letting you know that we are changing our URL, but your privacy and data protection settings remain the same.”

Changing the domain was one of the last steps in Musk’s rebrand. While branding and other changes reflected the company’s new era, the URL remained twitter.com.

Musk announced the platform’s rebrand to X last summer, saying the original name no longer made sense. He said Twitter made sense when the site limited users to 140-character posts, “like birds tweeting” back and forth, but now, users can post longer messages and hours of video.

Musk said the platform would “bid adieu to the twitter brand” and “all the birds.” When he introduced the new X logo, though, he was met with criticism.

Some users called the decision to rebrand selfish, saying the iconic logo and name took away from businesses that relied on the name-brand recognition.

The transition from old leadership to Musk and Twitter to X has been gradual over the past year and a half, but it has at times been chaotic and met with criticism from users, many of whom vowed to leave the platform entirely.

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