When Tesla billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, I was concerned about how it would fair under his ownership. That was especially true after he renamed it X, which I opposed.
I still have a tough time calling it X. Twitter is catchier and more accurate for the short-message social media service.
Nevertheless, Twitter, I mean X, has actually improved under Musk’s ownership. I’m a daily user of X and enjoy reading the posts of accounts I follow and going down the rabbit hole with posts in the “For You” section. X has a lot of funny posts, videos and memes, as well as eye-opening information you don't see in the traditional media. I use X for entertainment and news.
Except for some limited interference by Musk, X is a free speech free-for-all. There’s still misinformation on the service but the Community Notes feature does a good job of crowd-sourced fact-checking. Plus, with the addition of the Grok AI chatbot, users can ask for context and more information on claims in posts.
Like all social media services, X has its share of bad actors, including trolls and propagandists. But you can avoid them if you want. I prefer X to all the other social media services out there, namely Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
I also appreciate that X made “likes” private in June 2024. I use the like button mostly as a bookmark, not to tell people that I like or agree with something posted.
Other changes under Musk include that addition of long-form texts and repurposing the user verification system as a subscription premium.
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