This article is about the social networking service. For the former parent company, see Twitter, Inc.
A request that this article title be changed to X (social network) is under discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed.
X, commonly referred to by its former name Twitter, is a social media website based in the United States. With over 500 million users, it is one of the world's largest social networks and the fifth-most visited website in the world.[4][5] Users can share text messages, images, and videos through posts (originally called "tweets").[6] X also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists and communities, and Spaces, a social audio feature. Users can vote on context added by approved users using the Community Notes feature.
The service is owned by the American company X Corp., the successor of Twitter, Inc. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, and was launched in July of that year. Twitter grew quickly; by 2012 more than 100 million users produced 340 million tweets per day.[7] Twitter, Inc., was based in San Francisco, California, and had more than 25 offices around the world.[8] A signature characteristic of the service is that posts are required to be brief (originally 140 characters, later expanded to 280 in 2017).[9] The majority of tweets are produced by a minority of users.[10][11] In 2020, it was estimated that approximately 48 million accounts (15 percent of all accounts) were not genuine people.[12]
In October 2022, the billionaire businessman Elon Muskacquired Twitter for US$44 billion, gaining control of the platform and becoming the chief executive officer (CEO).[13][14][15][16] He stated that his aim was to promote free speech. Since his acquisition, the platform has been criticized for enabling the increased spread of disinformation[17][18][19] and hate speech.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26]Linda Yaccarino succeeded Musk as CEO on June 5, 2023, with Musk remaining as the chairman and the chief technology officer.[27][28][29] In July 2023, Musk announced that Twitter would be rebranded to X and the bird logo would be retired.[30][31] In December 2023, Fidelity estimated the value of the company to be down 71.5 percent from its purchase price.[32] Since Musk's takeover, data from app-tracking firms has shown that global usage of X has declined by approximately 15%, compared to a decline of 5–10% in some other social media sites. X has disputed that usage has dropped at all.[33][34][35]
^Kantrowitz, Alex (October 23, 2023). "The Elon Effect". Slate. Archived from the original on May 6, 2024. Retrieved May 6, 2024.
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