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Twitter is a social networking site that was created in 2006. Users send "tweets" to let people know what they are doing. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams.

Twitter accused of hypocrisy over Trump tweets

Twitter is a social networking site that was created in 2006. Users send “tweets” to let people know what they are doing. It was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. Prior to building the service, they were working on a podcast directory called Odeo.

Odeo was a directory and search destination website for RSS-syndicated audio and video. It employed tools that enabled users to create, record, and share podcasts with a simple Adobe Flash-based interface.

When iTunes 4.9 was released, it ultimately made Odeo irrelevant. The people behind the company went on to create a service called Twttr. Twttr would eventually be called Twitter. iTunes 4.9, believe it or not, ultimately led to the creation of one of the most popular social networks in the world.

The major turning point for service’s popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive conference. Over the next few years, Twitter began to see rapid growth. For mobile devices, it originally relied upon third-party apps. In 2010, Twitter acquired application developer Atebits. Atebits had built the Twitter app known as Tweetie for the Mac and iPhone. It was renamed as Twitter and released for free.

Over the years, the apps have seen various revisions. There are currently versions available for iOS while desktop users must either use the web interface or a third party app like Tweetbot or Twitterrific.

Twitter officially shuts down its free API and affects multiple apps

Twitter API down

Twitter earlier this year announced multiple changes to its API after prohibiting developers from creating third-party apps with it. Among the changes, the company introduced new paid tiers for the API and a free, write-only version with a number of limitations. Now Twitter has officially shut down its old free API, which has affected many apps and websites across the web.

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This iOS Shortcut lets you find out who pays for Twitter Blue

This iOS Shortcut lets you find out who pays for Twitter Blue

Twitter owner Elon Musk had promised to put an end to the legacy blue check badge that was given to media and government personalities, but his plans have been delayed. Instead, Twitter has stopped distinguishing between those who pay for Twitter Blue and those who have a legacy verified badge. But there’s an iOS Shortcut that lets you find out if the person behind a Twitter account is paying for the blue badge or not.

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Twitter will no longer recommend tweets from unverified accounts, blocks non-Blue users from voting in polls

Twitter Verified (and/or Blue) checkmark logo, with Elon Musk poking out from behind it

Twitter has been aggressively pushing its Blue subscription, which unlocks some exclusive features and also gives users a blue verified badge. In another attempt to convince more users to pay for Twitter Blue, the platform will now stop recommending tweets from unverified accounts. More than that, non-Blue users will no longer be able to vote in polls.

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Twitter users complain about seeing tweets from accounts they don’t follow

twitter 2fa changes

Earlier this year, Twitter released an update that forced users to see the “For You” tab with suggested tweets every time they opened the app. The platform later reversed this decision, but it seems that Twitter is once again finding a way to annoy its users. This time, many people are complaining about Twitter’s For You tab excessively showing content from accounts they don’t follow.

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Jack Dorsey’s Twitter competitor ‘Bluesky’ now available on the App Store, but you still need an invite

Twitter competitor Bluesky now available on the App Store

Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey left the company in May 2022 amid negotiations with Elon Musk. Since then, he has been working on Bluesky – a new decentralized social network that comes to compete with Twitter. This week, the Bluesky app was officially made available in the iOS App Store, but there’s a catch. It still requires an invitation to use it.

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Twitter now wants to become a payments platform to compete with Apple Pay and PayPal

Twitter timelines filled with Musk tweets; API change delayed; Chinese dissidents invisible

A significant number of users are finding that their Twitter timelines are dominated by tweets from Elon Musk.

It follows the company’s owner complaining to engineers that his tweets weren’t getting as much attention – firing a senior one who told him it wasn’t a technical issue, just people being less interested in what the billionaire had to say …

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Twitter earning millions | Birds fighting

Twitter earning millions from 10 unbanned users; engineers in Catch-22 position with Musk

Reinstating the accounts of ten users previously banned for hate speech or promoting dangerous conspiracy theories will see Twitter earning millions of dollars in additional ad revenue, according to a new report today.

A separate report says that Twitter engineers have been placed in an impossible position: Musk demanding changes which they cannot implement due to code freezes …

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Twitter’s new API limitations are dumb, but they won’t affect regular users for now

Twitter Blue subscription | Crying Twitter bird

There’s been a lot of things happening on Twitter recently, but this Wednesday was a busy one for the social network. The day began with the expansion of Twitter Blue to more countries and then the roll out of long tweets of up to 4,000 characters. But then Twitter went through a major outage, and now the social network has announced new limitations to its API (or what’s left of it).

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Twitter API U-turn; CSAM remains on Twitter, including the easiest to detect

Site default logo image

Yesterday saw a Twitter API U-turn by the company’s owner Elon Musk, after he had said that the code powering both third-party twitter clients and automated posting bots would no longer be freely available.

Separately, a new report says that even the most common and easily-detected Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) remains on the platform after Musk vowed that removing it was his #1 priority …

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Twitter GodMode still available to all engineers, following hack of Apple and other accounts

Twitter GodMode | 'God rays over a lake'

Twitter GodMode – an internal tool that hackers used to tweet from high-profile accounts, including Apple, back in 2020 – remains available to all of the company’s engineers, according to a new report today.

Twitter had previously said that the security hole had been fixed, but a whistleblower said that aside from changing the name of the tool from GodMode to PrivilegedMode, the company had made only one change – and that still allowed any Twitter engineer to trivially gain uncontrolled access to it …

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Tapbots readies ‘Ivory’ client for Mastodon as Tweetbot era unceremoniously ends

Tweetbot discontinued refund

The dust continues to settle following Twitter’s decision to cut off third-party apps from its API. Twitter’s poorly communicated decision means that apps like Twitteriffic and Tweetbot can no longer exist. In light of that, Tapbots has published an official memorial for Tweetbot while also teasing that “a new bot will rise in its place and be greater than Tweetbot ever was.”

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