New Twitter Launches After Elon Musk’s X Drops His Name

Operation Bluebird, Inc. is adopting the Twitter name while emphasizing that it is not affiliated with Company X. The company states: “We are not X, and we are not affiliated with Company X.”

Neither X Corporation, Elon Musk, nor X attorney Andrew Mayo immediately responded to Ars’ requests for comment.

Twitter.now remains in its early stages, with only a few hundred users so far. The social media platform features replies and retweets, giving it a look and feel similar to the original Twitter and several of its successors.

Twitter.now introduces automated fact-checking with Vera

One of Twitter.now’s most notable features is an automated fact-checking system that analyzes every post. The tool, called the “Real-Time Analytics Veracity Engine,” or “Vera,” is powered by Google’s Gemini technology.

According to a test shared by Coates, Vera has recently generated factually incorrect messages, including the claim that “George Washington was our second president.”

“Our first goal is to see if we can really bring back a safer, less harmful town square,” Coates said.

“We’re talking about freedom of expression, not freedom of reach. We want people to say what they want to say, but we also want to create a platform that isn’t financially tied to harmful or inaccurate viral content.”

Josh Garben, a Washington, D.C.-based trademark attorney who has been closely following the dispute, told Ars that Operation Bluebird may have a “viable legal theory” that Company X abandoned the Twitter trademark. However, he cautioned that the case is not legally settled.

“There’s an element of outrageousness to this, and they’re going to put up the best fight that X has,” Garben said.

Garben added that launching a product under the disputed name could significantly increase the stakes. “It was one thing to file a trademark application. But now that we’ve launched a trademark, there’s going to be a different reaction,” he said. “They’re really raising the bar now. The development of events is really interesting. Put another popcorn in the microwave!”