• Vine is being relaunched as a new app called Divine
• It's being funded by Jack Dorsey, who acquired the original Vine platform in 2013
• It's invite-only for the time being, but a wider rollout is on the way

Vine was the social media platform that defined the 2010s, and it’s making a comeback after a nearly 10-year absence. Well, kind of.

The platform that spearheaded short-form vertical feeds with its iconic six-second looping videos is being relaunched as Divine and funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, AKA the same guy who acquired Vine in 2013, and later put it to sleep in 2017. But the funniest thing about the reboot is that Dorsey has beaten Elon Musk to the punch, who previously teased restoring user access to the 2010s social media staple.

While this sounds like a dream come true for those who lived through the Vine days, Divine is invite-only for now, but the company is planning a wider rollout in the coming months. The company has also noted that while Divine is inspired by the original Vine platform, it operates entirely independently and has no affiliation with Twitter/ X.

That said, a lot has changed since Vine was shut down. Social media algorithms are smarter, and consumer habits have shifted — so how will Divine live up to TikTok, Instagram, and other rival kingpins?

Divine’s aim is two-fold: the first being nostalgia, which I think will be the catalyst for luring users. Divine will play host to an archive of over 500,000 videos from Vine’s golden days, giving you a one-stop place to relive some of the most famous online videos you probably still reference with your friends today, as well as allowing you to create and upload new content.

As far as its algorithm goes, Divine is taking an alternative approach and will let users choose how content reaches them, offering four options: Home feed, Discovery, Trending, and Hashtag feed.

“We believe that the monoculture of a single advertising-oriented algorithm is responsible for many of the issues experienced by other social media,” Divine details in its FAQs page.

The second part of Divine’s goal is to take a stance against AI-generated content, which involves combining a plethora of methods to create a robust AI detection tool.

ProofMode, the main component of this, is a tool that inspects metadata to detect AI that's used to generate audio, images, and videos. On top of this, Divine has a user reporting system in place in addition to machine-learning detection and human-in-the-loop (HITL) techniques.

Despite having to wait for the broader rollout, there’s no denying that Vine’s relaunch will excite an entire generation of internet nerds who got their first online video kick from Vine. Unlike the old musical.ly platform, which was then merged with TikTok, this is a different scenario.

It’s a full-on resuscitation of an app that, despite having a significant influence on the evolution of short-form videos, was quite short-lived, and you can best believe you’ll be getting a full review when I finally get my hands on it.

• SEC lawsuit alleges Musk failed to disclose >5% Twitter ownership in time
• Musk was able to buy Twitter shares at an artificially low price
• The two parties are working on a settlement outside of court

A new SEC filing has confirmed that the Commission is now in talks with Elon Musk to resolve an ongoing lawsuit over his Twitter takeover.

The 2025 court case accuses Musk of failing to disclose a more than 5% stake in Twitter within the required 10 days – a deadline he missed by 11 days.

By delaying discloser, Musk was able to buy over $500 million in shares at artificially low prices, putting other investors at a disadvantage.

Musk in talks to settle Twitter takeover lawsuit

As a result, the SEC was seeking $150 million in penalties – the amount he is said to have saved by disclosing 11 days late on April 4, 2022, instead of March 24, 2022.

"On April 4, 2022, after Musk filed the Schedule 13G, Twitter’s stock price increased more than 27%, closing at $49.97 per share compared to a close of $39.31 per share the prior trading day," the SEC wrote in 2025.

However both parties have advised a Washington DC court that they are in active discussions to reach a settlement. The judge has since been asked to extend the March 18 deadline by two weeks to April 1, to allow time for these negotiations.

"The parties are engaged in discussions of a potential resolution that would mean further proceedings might not be necessary," the SEC filing discloses.

This isn't the first time Elon Musk has had a running with the Commission – in 2018, he and his car company Tesla were both forced to pay $20 million each.

Twitter, delisted as a public company upon Musk's takeover and now trading as X, falls under xAI ownership, itself falling under SpaceX ownership. More than three years after Twitter went private, SpaceX could now be considering an IPO, which would take X/Twitter public again, though not as a sole entity.

It wasn't on the scale of a certain cellular outage, but X (formerly Twitter) was down for many users today.

For a while, thousands of users found that both the site and mobile app were failing to load for them, with the former accompanied by a 'Something went wrong' notice.

The spikes in reported outages on DownDetector started to rise as of 10:15am ET, reaching over 78,000 in the United States at their peak. At the same time, reports for Grok began spiking, reaching around 2,200.

TechRadar reported live on the outage, which fortunately fizzled out for most by around 11.45am / 4.45pm GMT. Here's how it played out...

While X was down for me initially, it came back, and then went away again. And it seems that's the case as of now for many of my TechRadar colleagues in both the US and the UK – they still can't get X to load as a whole, with the timeline not loading, and trending terms on the side.

Down Detector reports show a slight recovery, and then a spike of outages

Down Detector reports show it's likely the case for many: X went down, causing the initial spike, slightly recovered, and then hit problems again. As of the last update at 10:42 AM ET, there are over 53,000 reports of issues with using X.

Interestingly, my colleague Lance Ulanoff was able to post, but it took a while to appear on his profile.

On mobile – specifically the X app for iOS – in the UK, my colleague, TechRadar's Mark Wilson, is seeing a timeline with 'Posts aren't loading right now' at the top with a selection of older posts appearing underneath.

In the US, I'm not seeing the error up top, but the timeline below is not updated with recent posts; all are dated several hours ago.

On desktop here in the United States, X appears back for me, with the timeline loading and trending topics on the side, showing fairly recent posts. The first post is less than an hour old, but it's a bit slow to access different aspects of the site.

I've heard from colleagues in the US and the UK that it's a bit slow, but it is loading and getting closer to normal usage levels.

Considering many of the posts appearing in our timelines are from over an hour ago, or in some cases longer, it does appear that X is playing catch-up and is in recovery mode.

Down Detector reports are steadily dropping as well, currently sitting at under 8,000 reports as of 11:02 AM ET. Let us know in the comments down below if you're able to access X again and see more recent posts.

X seems to be back for most

Fortunately, it seems today's X outage is just a short-lived blip – with the site working fine for us, and reports on Downdetector dropping to around 6,000 in the US and only around 1,000 in the UK.

There's been no official explanation of what happened on the official X account, and we're unlikely to get one now given the issues lasted barely an hour. Let the memes re-commence...

I still tweet. I don't love it anymore, but I still do it partly because it's still an important part of social promotion for my content, and also because, like a smoker who can't quite kick the habit, I can't stop.

Word that a renegade group of businesspeople and lawyers wants to take back the Twitter brand name, its bluebird logo, and even the 'tweet' gave me a moment of elation – or is it hope? – for a revival of a bygone era. The truth is, though, it's probably way too late for that.

Led by Illinois attorney Michael Peroff and former Twitter General Counsel Stephen Coates, Operation Bluebird has, according to a report in Arstechnica, filed a petition with the US Patent and Trademark Office to end X's use of both the Twitter brand name and 'Tweet' and then relaunch them in 2026 as 'Twitter.new'.

It's a bold move and, clearly, an effort to revive a bygone era. As Coates told Arstechnica, "I remember some time ago, I’ve had celebrities react to my content on Twitter during the Super Bowl or events, and we want that experience to come back, that whole town square, where we are all meshed in there.”

Trust me. I get it. Through Twitter, which I joined in 2007, I've connected with everyone from world leaders to TV and movie stars, tech industry icons, media colleagues, and more. Twitter, circa 2007-to-2014, especially, felt like a flat earth with nothing but open borders and vast thoroughfares where you could run into anybody. It was wonderful, and I loved it.

So yes, I get the intention: let's bring back the OG Twitter and put 'tweeting' back in the hands of those who love to do it.

A steep hill and a tired bird

There are potential hurdles, like X's still, until very recently, use of the Twitter domain as a backend for connecting to third-party sites (and possibly services), and the fact that X has never come up with anything other than a 'tweet' to describe what people do on the platform. Also, if you see a tweet posted outside X, it often has this label on it: 'X (formerly Twitter)'.

Despite Elon Musk's apparent hatred for the brand name and that blue bird, which he ripped off the company's downtown San Francisco headquarters as soon as he could, I suspect Musk will fight this effort with everything he has. I'm not saying it's because Musk would ever consider going back to 'Twitter', it's just that he's spiteful enough to not want anyone else to have or use the brand.

Also, I would not put it past Musk to launch a separate 'Twitter' platform for people who don't love X. That might sound crazy, but Musk has expressed interest in, for instance, the revival of other previously discontinued Twitter brands like Vine. There's literally no reason for the six-second video platform to exist anymore, not when TikTok exists. Naturally, this was a head fake from Musk, who later declared he was bringing Vine back in AI form.

Still, Musk likes to dangle these possibilities in front of long-time Twitter users to keep them interested, and hopeful for something better.

It's dead, Jim

What will not happen, though, is a revival of 'Twitter' and old-school 'tweeting' on any platform, old or new.

It's not that I don't think Operation Bluebird could succeed. The law might actually be on its side. According to Peroff and Coates Musk has "abandoned" the brand and trademark. But that bird, and those words, no longer mean the same thing as they once did. They no longer spark joy.

Even before Musk bought the platform in 2022, but especially after, a darkness crept into the service. Factions rose up, as did borders in that virtual town square. We took sides, grew angry. Engaging on Twitter and then X could feel like stepping into a boxing ring, but without protective headgear.

Anger and hate not only flooded in, but the man who kept the floodgates open was Musk himself, who seemed to think that insults and invectives were proof of a free-speech platform.

The BlueBird logo, which, until recently, could still be found in various parts of X, grew tarnished and then finally toppled from its perch, dead.

Peroff and Coates might wrest the Twitter name from Musk, but they'll face the twin challenges of rehabilitating a damaged brand and trying to launch yet another microblogging social media platform when we already have X, Threads, and Bluesky. The last is the nearest thing we have to old-school tweeting (it's no accident that it's a blue logo), but even it has failed to revive the old Twitter and tweeting magic.

That doesn't surprise me. Magic is not persistent; if it were, it wouldn't be called 'magic,' just 'life'. Something as special as the OG Twitter simply can't endure indefinitely.

Twitter had its moment in the sun, its life as a positive and open town square. But like most bustling cities, it eventually succumbed to population density and corruption.

So, good luck with Operation Bluebird, guys. If you succeed, I will visit; but no one, least of all me, expects it to be Twitter 2.0.

• EU issues its first Digital Services Act fine to X for €120 million/$140 million
• It relates to the blue checkmark, ad transparency and research data
• Musk calls for the abolition of the European Union

The European Commission has fined social media platform X €120 million (around $140 million) for breaching transparency obligations set out under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Europe’s concerns include a lack of transparency of the platform’s advertising repository and failure to provide researchers with access to public data. The bloc also criticized X’s blue checkmark scheme for being deceptive to users.

X, owned by Elon Musk, has been given 60 days to address blue checkmark concerns, and 90 days to provide an action plan for ad transparency and research data access.

X fined €120 million in Europe under the Digital Services Act (DSA)

Failure to comply with the European Commission’s remedial timeframes could see Musk’s platform face ongoing penalty payments.

Regarding X’s advertising, the EU noted that the platform “incorporates design features and access barriers” like processing delays, which “hinders researchers and the public to independently scrutinize any potential risks.” Repositories play an important role in detecting scams, hybrid threat campaigns, coordinated information operations and fake advertisements - many of which could be loaded with malware or lead to identity theft.

For researchers, X’s terms “prohibit eligible researchers from independently accessing its public data.”

The EU also noted that X fails to conduct sufficient verification for accounts applying for the paid blue checkmark. It’s deceptive because “[the DSA] clearly prohibits online platforms from falsely claiming that users have been verified, when no such verification took place.”

Even though the case has been about two years in the making, with investigations starting in December 2023, this landmark case denotes the first fine under the DSA.

“With the DSA’s first non-compliance decision, we are holding X responsible for undermining users’ rights and evading accountability,” Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy SVP Henna Virkkunen commented.

US Ambassador to the EU Andy Puzder said the fine was “excessive” and “targeting American innovation.”

“The Trump Administration has been clear: we oppose censorship and will challenge burdensome regulations that target US companies abroad,” Puzder said, anticipating “fair, open, & reciprocal trade” with the EU.

Responding to Virkkunen’s X post, Musk responded: “You love censorship more than life itself.”

Separately, Musk wrote: “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.”

It's been a bad week for X – the social media site and former Twitter home just went down again for the second time this week, but fortunately seems to have quickly recovered.

The first spike in reported problems on Downdetector happened at around 10.17am ET / 3.17pm GMT, with over 3,000 reports in the US and over 300 in the UK. Those hit a peak of 19,000 in the UK and 4,800 in the UK, but quickly dropped again as quickly as they rose.

There was no official reason for this big blip, but it followed a much bigger one on Tuesday November 18 which saw the site struggle for several hours, following some problems at the cloud giant Cloudflare.

There have been no such Cloudflare isses today, and X seems to have now fully recovered on desktop and mobile...

Another bad day for X?

Just three days on from X's previous outage, we're now seeing a huge spike in reports on Downdetector.

In the US, there are currently 8,300 reports (that's approaching the early heights of the outage earlier this week), while in the UK it's also down on both web and mobile for many with over 4,000 reports.

It isn't yet clear what's caused this second outage, but a picture should emerge shortly –hopefully this one is a little more short-lived...

Both the app and web affected

According to Downdetector and our own experiences, X is struggling on both the mobile app and website.

Strangely, the web version lets us post but isn't showing us a feed, while the mobile app is showing the usual "posts aren't loading right now" message".

However, there are already positive signs that it's returning for some, so the signs are good that this is a much shorter outage than earlier this week.

What's causing the problems?

There are spikes in reported problems elsewhere, but despite a small uptick in Cloudflare reports on Downdetector there's no suggestion it's related to the cloud giant this time – the Cloudflare status page has a much healthier green 'all systems operational' label today.

Naturally, there's also been a sharp rise in reported Grok issues alongside X, but it seems the issues are now easing – both desktop and mobile are working okay for us, and the graph has dropped to a much healthier 2,600 reports in the UK and only around 500 in the UK.

The trend is most definitely positive, but I'll be keeping a close eye in case there are any aftershocks...

Let the doom-scrolling resume

Good news for fans of Grok and freshly-cooked hot takes – X seems to be working fine again on both mobile and desktop.

The Downdetector graph has plummeted from a serious high of over 18,500 reports in the US and 3,100 in the UK, to minimal numbers again.

That quite was quite a big blip, but fortunately only a blip this time – and there don't seem to be any major repercussions at other services, aside from WeTransfer which has just seen a spike in reports.

I think we can consider this outage as case closed – and hopefully that'll be it for the weekend so we can continue our doom-scrolling.

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, experienced a huge outage on web and mobile today, but fortunately the problems now seem to be fixed.

The first spike in reported problems on Downdetector happened at around 6.08am ET / 11.08am ET, with over 3,800 reports in the UK and over 11,000 in the US. They hit a high at around 6.40am ET / 11.40am, followed by a second peak at around 8.35am ET / 1.35pm GMT – both of which coincided with some major Cloudflare problems.

Cloudflare said it saw "unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services beginning at 11:20 UTC", but has since said that "a fix has been implemented". That seems to have sorted the problems on X and many other sites including ChatGPT, for now at least.

Here's how the big X outage of November 2025 played out and what caused it...

The latest news

• X was down for many from around 6.10am ET / 11.10am GMT
• The reports hit a high on Downdetector at around 6.40am / 11.40am
• The outage seems to have been caused by Cloudflare issues that have been fixed

X seems to be down for everyone

X is definitely having a major outage today, with tens of thousands reporting the issue on Downdetector.

At the time of writing, there are 11,150 reports in the US and 3,895 in the UK on Downdetector. The issues are affecting both the mobile app and web browser version, with both showing a "posts aren't loading right now" message for me.

The culprit could well be Cloudflare, which says its global network is "experiencing issues"...

Is Cloudflare to blame?

One of the potential culprits for today's issues on X is Cloudflare – it's seen a simultaneous spike on Downdetector, with over 7,000 reports in the UK and over 4,000 in the US.

Ironically, even Downdetector itself (which uses Cloudflare) was experiencing issues for a short period.

Cloudflare has also posted the notice above saying that it's "continuing to investigate" an issue impacting multiple customers. In fact, it seems to be growing, with Cloudflare reporting "widespread 500 errors" with "Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing".

Let's hope this one isn't too widespread...

It's hitting both mobile and desktop

I'm feeling distinctly less distracted today than usual – and that's because the X outage is hitting both the web version and mobile app.

Like many, I'm getting the "posts aren't loading right now" message above when trying to refresh the mobile app.

The issues have lasted for around an hour now, but there's promising signs on Downdetector that they may be easing...

Promising signs

Good news, it seems the problems on X could be improving – the website and app are now working for me and there's been a sharp drop in reports on Downdetector (above) to almost half of their earlier peak.

X has been dropping in and out for me today, so it's a bit early to call this outage over – but it seems to be moving in the right direction.

Strangely, the Cloudflare problems seem to be moving in the opposite direction though, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one...

X still has the jitters

Despite the drop in reports on Downdetector, I'm still experiencing issues on X on both desktop and mobile – perhaps it's spontaneously combusted from Google Gemini 3 hype.

Fortunately, that's not the case for everyone, and the reports on Downdetector are now down to around 2,400 in the US and just over 2,000 in the UK, suggesting the issues are easing.

This corresponds to a similar drop on Cloudflare – so while there's been no official connection between the two, it looks likely that Cloudflare issues have sparked the absence of memes and outrage on X today.

X isn't the only site affected

While X has been the biggest hit by today's issues – most likely stemming from Cloudflare's acknowledged problems – it isn't the only place you'll have been seeing 'internal server error' messages.

On Downdetector, we've also seen spikes at the online multiplayer game League of Legends, a fanfiction site called Archive of our Own, plus Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail according to Reddit.

The timing suggests a connection to Cloudflare's issues – the internet infrastructure giant said at 7.37am ET / 12.37pm GMT that it was "continuing to investigate this issue", so expected to see other services you use (alongside X) playing up today.

Where do people go when X is down?

It seems that X fans don't flock to Threads when their chosen social network is down, but Bluesky instead.

At least that's the conclusion from a quick check on Google Trends (above) that the guys at Search Atlas pointed me towards.

While Bluesky has seen a spike in search interest today, Threads has stayed pretty flat. On paper, Threads is closer to X in style (more mainstream and centralized), but Bluesky may be closer the original Twitter in spirit.

Either way, both have likely benefited from today's X issues, which are continuing to rumble on despite the promising drop in reports earlier...

X is down again for many

The X website and mobile app are back down again for me – although looking at Downdetector, that doesn't seem to be the case for everyone.

In the US, we're down to just over 1,600 reports, while in the UK it's dropped to only 400 reports – so this is far from a complete blackout.

Fortunately, we seem to be over the peak that happened at around 6.40am ET / 11.40am ET, but if you're still having trouble getting your daily dose of AI-generated video, Gemini 3 hype or Grok-based wisdom on X, you're far from alone.

ChatGPT and Photopea also hit

It's another one of those days where we learn how a critical point of cloud failure can cause rippling waves of instability across the web.

X continues to be down for many in the US and UK, and other services are experiencing aftershocks from the Cloudflare problems – including ChatGPT and Photopea.

Still, in better news, Cloudflare appears to have identified a fix – with the cloud giant stating on its updates page at 8.09am ET / 1.09pm GMT that "the issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented".

Let's hope this does the trick for X and all the other sites that it's likely hit...

The mobile app seems worst hit

For me and thousands of others, the mobile X app seems particularly affected by today's outage.

On Downdetector, 61% of reports in the US and 60% in the UK say the main problem is the mobile app, although that may simply reflect how people use X.

The website has been more responsive for me today – but just as I say that, there's been an enormous spike on Downdetector for X on all platforms...

Another huge spike in reports

Woah, just as we thought the X outage had hit its peak, there's been another huge spike on Downdetector in the US and UK.

These issues have corresponded with a huge spike in reported issues on Cloudflare. In the US, we're back over 13,500 reports in the US and over 3,400 in the UK.

It seems this outage is far from over – you can follow the corresponding Cloudflare issues, which seem to be the root of today's woes, over on our separate liveblog.

Cloudflare reports 'spike in unusual traffic'

As you can read in our Cloudflare liveblog, we've just been given this very intriguing statement from the cloud giant – which could reveal why today's issues on X and many other sites have been so long-lasting.

"We saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services beginning at 11:20 UTC. That caused some traffic passing through Cloudflare's network to experience errors," the Cloudflare statement says.

"We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic. We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors. After that, we will turn our attention to investigating the cause of the unusual spike in traffic. We will post updates to cloudflarestatus.com and more in-depth analysis when it is ready to blog.cloudflare.com" the statement added.

This is pure speculation, but "a spike in unusual traffic" sounds to me very much like a DDoS attack, with Cloudflare blocking a giant one back in September. We'll undoubtedly learn more once Cloudflare has fixed the problems...

Karma for Musk and X?

As noted by TechCrunch, today's X outage comes seasoned with notes of karma, given Elon Musk gloated about the recent AWS outage that broke much of the internet (except his own social network).

Musk wrote on X around that time that “Messages on X chat are fully encrypted with no advertising hooks or strange ‘AWS dependencies,’ so I can’t read your messages even if someone put a gun to my head".

Unfortunately, many of us now can't read any messages at all on X, due to today's Cloudflare issues. And those problems are continuing to grow, according to Downdetector...

Cloudflare is clearly the root cause

While there's been no official statement from X about today's issues, it's pretty clear that the social media site's problems – and also now on ChatGPT – are related to the Cloudflare wobbles, which are spiking at the same time.

The X problems have now settled at around 10,000 in the US and around 1,700 in the UK, and it's still down on both the web and mobile app for me in the UK.

Cloudflare earlier said in a statement that it "saw a spike in unusual traffic to one of Cloudflare's services beginning at 11:20 UTC", and its status says it's "continuing to work on a fox for this issue".

X is back!

X is now back for me and almost everyone else, according to Downdetector – just in time for me to see this unfortunately-timed post from yesterday.

The answer to that question for many today was "non existent", but fortunately the Cloudflare issues – which were almost certainly the root cause – have been fixed, and the result is timelines full of memes and Google Gemini 3 hype have returned.

In theory, that should be the end of the great X outage of November 2025, but I'll be keeping an eye on things just in case...

• Users are unable to access X.com due to botched authentication switchover
• Endless redirects are being reported
• Migration from twitter.com to x.com is causing issues

Numerous users of X (formerly Twitter) are reporting being locked out of their accounts thanks to a botched authentication switchover.

The issue relates to the retirement of the old twitter.com domain in favor of Elon Musk’s apparent sentimental attachment to x.com.

Users who rely on passkeys and hardware security keys are being sent into an endless loop to re-enroll their chosen form of two-factor authenticator.

Logging in has never been harder

The move from twitter.com to x.com began in May 2024, with X warning users that if they did not manually migrate their passkey or hardware security key authentication by November 10, they would be locked out of their accounts until they migrated or chose a different form of authentication (such as an authenticator app, which hasn’t been affected by the migration).

Lo and behold, November 10 has passed and users are being forced to migrate their authentication method. Unfortunately for them, many users are experiencing error messages during migration, or are being caught in a perpetual loop of redirects.

Passkeys and hardware security keys are supposed to be a quick and secure way to ensure that the person logging in to your account is actually you, but currently for X users, that's not the case.

Outage tracker site Downdetector still shows some users are struggling to log in three days after the deadline, and X hasn’t released an official comment on the matter.

This isn’t the first time X has been subject to a botched security change. In 2023, the Tor onion service that allowed users in areas with restricted or censored internet access to Twitter went down, and thanks to Musk’s massive layoffs the service remained offline.

Elon has made several questionable changes to the platform since its purchase for $44 billion in May 2022, including changes to the way blocking worked on the platform that resulted in millions of users flocking to X-alternative BlueSky. X has also seen large-scale layoffs following Elon’s purchase of the platform.

Two years after Elon Musk rebranded Twitter to X, most of us still say we "tweeted" because saying, "I Xed" sounds ridiculous. But that vestigial act may soon lose its last tenuous thread of connection to the once-iconic brand name. Next month, X plans to "retire the Twitter domain."

In the scheme of things, this isn't a big deal. We've mostly stopped saying and writing, "on X (formerly Twitter)," and when you open X, there are virtually no indications that it ever featured a bird-related name. I said "virtually," but more on that in a bit.

The news of the impending deprecation of the classic domain comes by way of X Safety. The account posted a...er..X telling everyone that by November 10, they want all accounts using security keys as 2FA (two-factor authentication) "to reneroll their key to continue accessing X."

That post was followed by a flurry of questions, prompting the Safety account to clarify that the change was not related to security and would affect only passkeys and users of YubiKeys. And that's when they finally explained the reason for the change: "Re-enrolling your security key will associate them with x[.]com, allowing us to retire the Twitter domain."

For those who don't know, 2FA is the best way to protect your accounts. It uses, for instance, third-party security apps like Google Authenticator to generate a unique code you need to log in to the account. Since that code usually appears on a device in your hand, it's the best way to confirm that it's you and not some bad actor trying to access your account. This domain update might temporarily break that connection and login process.

I imagine the Twitter domain retirement is like someone stamping out the still-burning embers of a major fire. Twitter was euthanized as a brand years ago, with the logo pulled from the former San Francisco headquarters and the blue bird stripped from the app and website. But it hasn't been easy to kill.

As I mentioned, some of us still say "tweet." If you want to embed an X post on a website, it takes you to a page that still features the bird logo and still shows the "Twitter.com" domain in the post URL.

My guess is that Musk and company are finally ready to clean our or at least throw water on the last of those glowing embers. Still, I had to ask Musk on X if he could comment on "core benefit, and are you concerned about disenfranchising millions who signed up for the OG platform?"

As you might've guessed, Musk has yet to respond; it's been years since he replied to me directly on the platform.

Decisions like this, which can have far-reaching impact (possibly even breaking legacy embeds and other domain connections) would normally be taken with some care, but that's not X or Musk's MO.

Musk's reportedly unpredictable and cavalier decision-making has, in recent months, driven out the company's last CEO, Linda Yaccarino, and, more recently, CRO John Nitti, who left just days ago.

Fly away

Perhaps there'll be no fallout, but I have to expect that some users who aren't paying close attention to the Safety account might miss the memo and find themselves locked out of what they remember as Twitter until they solve these X-created login issues.

More broadly, the euthanization of the Twitter domain is, perhaps, the last act in the long process of dismantling the once vibrant and largely positive platform: one that helps us understand Arab Spring, learn first-hand about the raid that brought down Osama Bin Laden, and see the first, stunning image from the miracle Landing on the Hudson.

This is X now, and it has little to do with that once beloved platform that Musk has remade in his own unpredictable and often churlish image.

Goodbye Twitter.com, you were something special in your time, but I guess everything has a season, and yours is about to be full and finally done.

In what we can only assume is a potential thumb in the eye of Elon Musk, Sam Altman's Open AI is reportedly considering building a social network, possibly inside ChatGPT.

This comes via a new report from The Verge, which claims this week that the social network possibly being built on top of OpenAI's AI services is only in the "early stages." Still, it could set up ChatGPT and other OpenAI platforms for a head-to-head battle with Grok, a generative AI platform built on top of Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter).

There are essentially no details about what this social platform might look like, and OpenAI has little experience with shareable content outside of what its models can generate and what you can see in Sora (the video generation system) of other people's creations.

Take that, X

The fact that this rumor is out there might have little to do with behind-the-scenes development and more to do with Altman's ongoing battle with former partner Musk.

The pair founded OpenAI together before Musk walked away in 2018. He has since criticized and sued OpenAI for, among other things, becoming, in part at least, a for-profit entity (see OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft and the rise of Copilot).

Let's assume for a moment, though, that this is real. Why would OpenAI want to build a social network? In a word: data.

If millions flock to the platform and then start, I guess, sharing AI-generated memes on it, they'll be dropping a ton of rich data into the OpenAI system. If users allow it, future versions of the GPT model could be trained on it. Real data and activities that show how real people think, talk, act, create, etc, can be invaluable to a young generative model.

Social timing is everything

I wonder if this might've made more sense a year or two ago when Musk took over Twitter, transformed it into X, removed many of the protective content guardrails, and turned it into a social media hellscape. It was in that moment that Meta's Threads first rushed in. It was followed in notoriety by Bluesky. Both of them are distributed social networks, meaning no one owns your identity or your data.

Their growth has been remarkable, and it stands in contrast to X's fortunes. Depending on who you talk to, active user growth is stagnant or shrinking. But that doesn't mean the public's appetite for more alternative platforms is growing. Threads' growth has slowed, and Bluesky is relatively small compared to X and Threads.

The action is mostly on image and video-based social platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. The Verge report does not mention video, which leads us to assume this could be another micro-blogging-style network – something no one necessarily needs or, perhaps, wants.

Even so, as an opportunity to cause Elon Musk a little more agita, it's probably a worthy trial balloon from Altman.

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Whether you’re starting fresh on social media or you just want to get rid of some old and embarrassing tweets, then you may want to know how to delete all tweets on X (formerly known as Twitter). Luckily there is a simple solution to this issue.

One way to delete all tweets is of course doing it one-by-one on your X profile, however this can get repetitive and boring real quick. Unfortunately, X doesn’t have a way to delete all Tweets within the app or website itself but fear not, there is third-party software that can do this for you.

We’ve opted for Redact, which allows you delete all tweets quickly and easily. It does require you to download an application which can only be used on Windows, Mac or Linux, so it cannot be used from a mobile phone. You’ll have to jump in front of a PC or laptop for this one.

Tools and requirements

• PC or laptop to access software from
• Internet connection
• Redact software
• You may need to pay for the premium version of the Redact software if you are deleting a large amount of tweets

Steps for how to delete all tweets

• Download and install the Redact app and then log in with your email address
• Select Services under the Delete from section and then hit Twitter and log in
• Select the tweets you want to delete, to delete them all hit Tweets and then All time for a starting point to Now for an ending point
• Click on Deletion Mode to delete your tweets without previewing them and then hit Start Deleting

Step by step guide on how to delete all tweets

Final thoughts on deleting all of your X posts and tweets

With social media constantly changing and evolving, knowing how to delete all tweets from your profile can be a useful skill to have.

Whether you want to be completely rid of your X account altogether, or you just want to start fresh with a brand new slate, using Redact to delete all tweets is a simple solution to the issue.

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• X suffered outages on Monday 10 March due to a “massive cyberattack”
• CEO Elon Musk attributed "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area”
• Security experts suggest the true origin of the attack cannot be identified

The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, suffered multiple outages on Monday 10 March. Thousands of X users in both the US and the UK reported being unable to access the website throughout the day.

Speaking to Fox Business, owner Elon Musk attributed the outages to a “massive cyberattack” and claimed that “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area” were behind it.

With reported problems peaking at 40,000 on Downdetector, the scale of the outage is not in any doubt. It’s the most significant interruption of service that the platform has suffered in years, with the effects of the outages lasting for several hours.

But now the dust has settled, what exactly caused the outage? Here are the original theories, followed by the thoughts of cybersecurity experts...

The claim: Ukraine-based hackers were behind the X cyberattack

In the aftermath of the X outage, question marks remain over its cause – and who might be behind it.

Elon Musk took to X on Monday to share his belief that the attack had been carried out “with a lot of resources”. He went on to claim that "either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved", followed by his later comments on Fox Business that it came from “IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area”.

The Hacking group Dark Storm Team briefly claimed responsibility for the attack on Telegram, although the post was later deleted.

Amid the uncertainty and finger-pointing, we’ve pieced together a clearer picture of what happened and deciphered Musk’s claims amid the ongoing geo-political spat with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The reality: it's impossible to pinpoint the real source of the X attack

Analysts across the web are broadly united in their understanding that X suffered a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on Monday. This is traditionally quite a crude form of cyberattack. It floods a target’s servers with illegitimate traffic, overwhelming their capacity and preventing real users from accessing the website in question.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Ciaran Martin – a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre – described the technique as “not that sophisticated.”

Some experts suggest otherwise. David Mound, Senior Penetration Tester at third-party risk management platform Security Scorecard, said in a statement that “DDoS attack tactics have evolved dramatically”. He pointed out that “attackers now distribute traffic across entire subnets”.

That echoes comments from industry insiders elsewhere. Several experts have highlighted that DDoS attacks are usually orchestrated using a battalion of devices around the globe. Traffic tends to be generated from IP addresses which are distributed across different regions, making it hard to pinpoint exactly where the attack originated from.

Speaking to Wired, Shawn Edwards, chief security officer of Zayo, a network connectivity firm, said that “attackers frequently use compromised devices, VPNs, or proxy networks to obfuscate their true origin.”

As a result, it’s difficult to pinpoint the real source of an attack. Even if traffic did come from IP addresses within a particular country, as Musk suggested, that doesn’t mean the cyberattackers were located in that country. In the words of Professor Martin, it “tells you absolutely nothing.”

Incidentally, Wired also quoted an anonymous researcher who stated that none of the top 20 traffic sources involved in the attack were located in Ukraine. If correct, that would disprove Musk’s statement regarding Ukrainian hackers. There appears to be no evidence behind his claim that IP addresses involved in the attack originated in Ukraine. Even if they did, that alone would not be proof that any group in the country was actually involved in the attack.

That’s not to say a state actor couldn’t be involved. Mound made clear that “nation-state actors are also employing DDoS as part of broader cyber influence and disruption campaigns, particularly in geopolitical conflicts”.

Another question is how the attack was able to impact X so significantly. DDoS attacks are relatively commonplace, with Musk himself posting on Monday that X gets “attacked every day”. So why did this one bring down X? Musk is keen to suggest that a heavily resourced group is behind it.

However, a number of independent analysts have identified that X’s servers were not properly secured, leaving them publicly exposed to the attack. To quote Professor Martin again, it “doesn't reflect well on their cyber security."

Cyber specialists are warning of an increase in the regularity and complexity of DDoS attacks. In some cases, attackers are “extorting businesses by threatening prolonged downtime,” says Mound. Others are threatening “politically motivated disruptions against governments, financial institutions, and infrastructure providers.”

Mound concludes: “With attackers continually refining their techniques, a proactive, adaptive security posture is essential to withstand modern DDoS threats.”

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• Fake DeepSeek websites are popping up and distributing malware
• The sites are followed by a huge promotion campaign on X
• The campaign generated more than a million views, experts warn

Cybercriminals are taking advantage of the hype surrounding AI hot-shot Deepseek to trick people into downloading malware, while evading scrutiny from security analysts, experts have warned.

Researchers at Kaspersky recently observed a sophisticated campaign consisting of compromised X accounts, coordinated bot activity, and geofencing.

The researchers said the cybercriminals created multiple websites to mimic the original Deepseek page. They set the pages up in such a way that they analyzed every visitor’s IP address, and altered the content dynamically, based on the location of the visitor. That way, they were able to display malicious content to some people, and benign content to others.

The targets were shown fake Deepseek software which granted the attackers full remote unauthorized access to their computers.

The hackers also got to advertising - stealing an X account belonging to a legitimate Australian company, and posted content that promoted the fake websites. They used a network of X bots to comment and share the content, generating more than a million views on the microblogging platform.

"Notable sophistication"

"This campaign demonstrates notable sophistication beyond typical social engineering attacks," explained Vasily Kolesnikov, senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Threat Research.

"Attackers exploited the current hype around generative AI technology, skillfully combining targeted geofencing, compromised business accounts and orchestrated bot amplification to reach a substantial audience while carefully evading cybersecurity defenses."

This is yet another proof that internet buzz does not translate to legitimacy. Cybercriminals are getting better at faking engagement, inflating download numbers, and writing fraudulent positive reviews.

To remain safe on the internet, one must be vigilant at all times. Do not trust - verify, should be the mantra, as scam campaigns get more sophisticated and more difficult to spot.

Software should always be downloaded from legitimate sources, whose URLs need to be checked meticulously. Finally, one should have a security program set up, and should keep their software up to date at all times.

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• Bluesky users can now post videos up to three minutes long
• There are also new changes to DMs, reporting, muting, and more
• It comes soon after rival network X was knocked offline by a cyberattack

Yesterday, X suffered a massive cyberattack that temporarily knocked it offline for users around the world. It came at a bad time, because rival social media app Bluesky has just announced a huge upgrade that could make it an even more enticing alternative to Elon Musk’s X.

According to an official Bluesky post from the app’s developer, the latest version 1.99 update brings a raft of changes to the social media app. The goal is to “make the Internet less toxic, more fun, and more in your control.”

Perhaps the most significant of these changes is that user-posted videos can now be up to three minutes long. Notably, that triples the previous 60-second limit and addresses one of Bluesky users’ most frequent requests.

As well as that, you’ll now get a separate “Chat Requests” inbox for DMs (direct messages) from unknown users. Instead of having this mail clogging up your regular inbox, you’ll be able to approve or decline new direct messages from accounts you don’t know away from all your important mail.

There were further changes elsewhere. You now have the ability to mute an account from the three-dot menu on a post instead of having to go to a profile first. Bluesky says the moderation reporting flow has been improved, as has the error reporting process during signup. Finally, tablet-optimized layouts now work better when viewed on the web.

These changes are unlikely to provoke a mass exodus from X towards Bluesky, but they come at a fortuitous time for the smaller social network. With many X users unhappy at the controversial direction taken by Elon Musk in recent months, Bluesky has an opportunity to promote itself as a tempting alternative. The high-profile attack that took X offline in recent days may further boost Bluesky’s appeal in the short-term.

If you’ve been considering jumping ship to Bluesky, we’ve got a guide on switching from X to Bluesky that’ll help make the transition seamless. While it’s still far behind X in terms of user count, Bluesky has been steadily gaining popularity over time, making it a viable alternative social network.

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• X is back – here's what we know about the 'massive cyberattack' that caused Twitter to go down four times today

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, had very rough Monday yesterday, with users reporting multiple outages throughout the day – and Elon Musk later claiming they were down to a "massive cyberattack".

The first spike in reported problems on Downdetector happened at 10am ET on Monday March 10, with X users in both the US and UK unable to get their usual fix of memes and outrage in the app or website.

While the first outage was quickly resolved, X went down a further three times – with the longest one approaching an earlier peak at 2pm ET. So to quote X's own tagline "what's happening"?

Elon Musk has now commented and claimed that "there was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X", which was "done with a lot of resources". So that would explain why X is continuing to have major issues over eight hours on from when they started. There was another spike in reported outages shortly after this, representing the fourth of the day.

Luckily, since about 2:30 pm ET on Monday March 10 we saw a steady decrease in reported outages on Downdetector and have seen the site rebound to typical usage since, despite the occasional wobble.

We'll keep an eye out, but considering there have been no further statements and X has been back operational, the outage is likely on its way to being fully over.

Ahead, you can see our live reporting on the several outages that hit X today, March 10, 2025.

The latest news

• The X app and site went down multiple times yesterday
• The longest started at around 10.50am ET / 2.50pm GMT on March 10
• Elon Musk said there was a "massive cyberattack against X"

When did this latest X outage start?

This is very much a global X / Twitter outage, with reports of problems climbing fast in the US and UK from around 10.50am ET / 2.50pm GMT on the site Downdetector.

They've just hit a peak of 30,000 reports in the US, which is a massive outage. In the UK, reports have fallen in the past hour, but are still hovering at the 4,700 mark.

So, what's causing the problems? While there's been nothing official, some cybersecurity commentators suggest it may be a so-called DDOS (or Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks, where a flood of internet traffic overwhelms a server.

In other words, buckle up – because this could last a while...

'Something went wrong'

Ever the master of understatement, X is greeting many users (my US colleagues in particular) with error messages like 'something went wrong' or simply a blank screen.

Some have taken to (other) social media platforms like Reddit to exclaim that this is actually an improvement to their lives. But here in the UK, X is back (for me at least) with its usual mix of Elon Musk ramblings, AI-generated memes and Fessholes.

This latest outage has fallen short of the second one earlier today at around 10am ET / 2pm GMT, but it is still pretty widespread. There's still no official word from X on the cause of today's wobbles, but presumably Grok is working on it...

Time to head to Bluesky?

Not surprisingly, many folks over on Bluesky are enjoying today's X outage and are looking back at the smoking remains of Twitter with a degree of schadenfreude.

Bluesky has managed to establish itself as a genuine X alternative, with the maker of the popular Tweetbot app (which was shut down after Twitter banned third-party apps) recently announcing that it's making an iOS and Mac app for the platform that's aptly called Phoenix.

Some Bluesky fans have noted (below) that it's been a particularly bad day for Elon Musk, with Tesla stock also down. And looking at Downdetector, the X problems don't seem to be easing...

The longest outage of the day...

It might not have hit the Downdetector peaks of the second outage earlier today, but this latest X wobble is the longest of the day – it's now over the two-hour mark, which means the world's productivity has coincidentally hit a 2025 peak.

That's now over seven hours in total since the first reported problems earlier today, which easily overshadows former Twitter outages in the past like the one in 2022 when the world was denied its memes for only an hour or so.

Back then, that seemed like a long time for the site to be down. Of course, the X workforce has shrunk by about 80% since then, but it did at least go on a cybersecurity hiring spree late last year – and we imagine it's been a busy day for them.

Even Grok can't help us...

We now live in a world of omnipotent, all-knowing AI assistants, so surely they can help with simple outages? Sadly not, if they're using the same servers as X – I tried to ask Grok what was happening today, but all I got was the usual 'something went wrong' message.

Grok has been hitting headlines lately with a new standalone iOS app in some countries (including the US, Australia and India), along with an unhinged voice mode that might be the most terrifying thing I've seen in 20 years of tech journalism.

But like X itself, Grok is notably quiet today – with reports on Downdetector showing another huge spike in reported problems.

What's causing the outage?

So far, X hasn't responded to requests for comment on what's causing its major problems today. The cybersecurity watchdog Netblocks says the outage "is not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering", which is a security screening process that can sometimes cause slowdown issues.

Some have speculated that the X outage has been caused by a DDOS attack. These are used by hackers to overwhelm a server with a huge amount of targeted traffic, so much so that it takes the service offline for many. While that's certainly possible, there's been nothing official to suggest that's the case.

In the absence of anything official from X, it seems we can only wait and locate an alternative source of memes to fill our Monday afternoons...

Some better news (for now)...

This most recent X outage has been the most prolonged of the day, but it appears to be recovering – the graph of Downdetector reports is showing a huge drop in both the US and UK.

In the US, we're now down to just under 4,000 reports (from a high of just under 36,000 just under an hour ago), while in the UK reports of X issues have dropped to a negligible 458, at the time of writing.

Of course, this also happened earlier today, only for X to go down even harder a short while later. But for now, it seems everyone is safe to go back and grill Grok about what on earth just happened...

Elon Musk confirms "massive cyberattack"

Well, that certainly helps explains things. Elon Musk has taken to X (now seemingly down again for the fourth time today) to claim that "there was (still is) a massive cyberattack against X".

Musk says that while X gets attacked "every day", "this was done with a lot of resources". He added that "either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved", with the X CEO uncharacteristically careful not to specify who that might be.

A big DDOS attack (or Distributed Denial of Service) always seemed the most likely explanation given the multiple outages that X has experienced today, but it's now seemingly official. The only question now is how long this might go on for...

Hi there, Jake Krol – TechRadar's Managing Editor News in the US – stepping in for a bit. It's been roughly 40 minutes since Elon Musk's post confirming a 'massive cyberattack,' and it seems that X is bouncing back a little, at least for me on the East Coast of the United States.

The service, which has been working intermittently on browse and the iOS app, appears to be a back app, though it still takes a bit to load. DownDetector also shows a drop in reported outages as of 2:35 PM ET, at the show showing only 2,849 reports.

X is still working as expected for many of my TechRadar colleagues and myself. Additionally, Elon Musk has gone back to regularly posting on the platform. There has been no further commentary on what caused the cyberattack as of yet, though.

Down Detector reports have dropped to just over 2,000 as of 3:33PM ET as well.

The morning after...

It's now the day after the biggest X outages in years and, for now, it seems that the social media site is back to normal, barring the odd minor tremor on Downdetector.

Somewhat predictably, explanations have taken a turn towards the geo-political, with Elon Musk claiming on Fox News that the IP addresses involved in the "massive cyberattack" were ultimately traced to locations "in the Ukraine area".

Meanwhile, the hacking group Dark Storm Team seemingly claimed it was responsible for the attack on Telegram, before deleting the post. The exact cause of the outages is hard to untangle from all of this, but one thing's for sure – rivals like Bluesky is trying to take advantage by announcing some new features including a big video upgrade.

Yesterday's problems aren't exactly going to convince many people to leave X, but the unusually long time of the outages certainly gave many (including me) some time to dip their toes into other social waters...

• Google Chrome is testing automatic password changes that would follow data breaches
• Google is calling this an ‘AI innovation’, but I’m not convinced
• Chrome already generates and stores passwords, plus checks databases for compromise passwords, and this would put those all together… using an algorithm… maybe?

Google Chrome could be about to implement AI tools to identify passwords found in data breaches, as well as being able to generate and store stronger alternatives.

That’s according to Twitter user Leopeva64, who found the feature in a Chrome Canary test build (via Ars Technica), writing, ‘Another AI-powered feature is coming to Chrome, “Automated password change,” the description mentions that “when Chrome finds one of your passwords in a data breach, it can offer to change your password for you when you sign in’.

That sounds nifty on paper, though it’s worth noting that the best password managers such as Bitwarden and Nordpass have implemented similar features before; so it’s reasonable to suggest that ‘AI’, whatever that umbrella term means here, isn’t actually living up to what Google is calling an ‘innovation’ here.

Chrome’s password ‘AI innovation’

Leaked password databases like ‘Have I Been Pwned’ have previously fulfilled this function, and aGoogle Chrome already uses this repository to inform users when their passwords have been compromised without resorting to ‘AI’.

Password generation is also a feature common to essentially every password manager under the sun, and storing those passwords for easy access (which Google Chrome has also done for some time) is literally the point of having a password manager; they do what they say on the tin!

It’s entirely possible that Chrome’s process of generating passwords is different - and, perhaps, more secure - using some kind of algorithm, but until security researchers explore this, the change amounts to Chrome offering to change a user’s password immediately following a breach. It’s convenient, but I’m also thinking - this is nothing new, and, truthfully, neither is putting ‘AI’ in the feature description.

In case you missed it, Google recently announced that the Enhanced Protection mode in its Chrome web browser’s Safe Browsing settings is protecting 1 billion users (via 9To5Google) from phishing and malware attacks.

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A group of investors led by Elon Musk has offered $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit arm - but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to hit back with a sarcastic bid offer to buy X.

Musk’s lawyer, Mac Toberoff, confirmed he submitted the bid to OpenAI’s board yesterday (via Wall Street Journal), further complicating the relationship between Musk and Altman.

The pressure adds to the already ongoing battle between the two, with Musk accusing OpenAI of betraying its nonprofit mission and partnering up with Microsoft.

Musk offers to buy OpenAI

Altman has set out plans to convert the business into a for-profit operation while splitting a $500 billion investment with the likes of Oracle and Softbank to improve AI infrastructure – something that Musk says neither OpenAI or Project Stargate’s backers can afford to do.

Meta has also complained, in the form of a letter to California’s attorney general, about the for-profit business plans.

“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement provided by Toberoff.

Altman hastened to share with colleagues on an internal Slack channel: “Our structure ensures that no individual can take control of OpenAI…These are tactics to try and weaken us because we are making great progress.”

The OpenAI CEO also took to X, the Musk-owned social media platform, to post: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Must replied with “Swindler,” and called his rival “Scam Altman” in another post.

It’s yet to be observed how the negotiations play out, but a possible OpenAI-xAI merger could be on the cards if the bid succeeds – an event that Altman deems highly unlikely.

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• A phishing campaign is targeting X users, experts warn
• Fake login emails are sent to victims
• The aim is to take over accounts and advertise a fraudulent crypto scheme

High-profile accounts on the social media network X (formerly known as Twitter) are being targeted by a phishing campaign, experts have warned.

A report from SentinelLabs outlined how prominent accounts belonging to US political figures, large tech organizations, leading international journalists, and even an X employee, have been attacked via a phishing campaign.

Although the primary targets are large accounts with a high follower account, everyone should be on the lookout for this attack: here’s what we know so far.

Financial objectives

In its report, SentinelLabs notes the aim of the attack is to compromise an account, lock out the legitimate owner, and post fraudulent cryptocurrency opportunities or links to external sites, which are designed to ‘lure additional targets’, most commonly with a crypto-theft related theme.

It seems the attack originates from a range of phishing tactics, one being the notorious login notice. This works by sending the victim an email to notify them their account was accessed from a new device, and that the location of the device was in a foreign city.

From there, a link is provided for users to ‘secure’ their accounts and provide their username and change the account password. This page is fake, and the victims have then unwittingly provided their credentials to a threat actor.

The campaign uses several phishing domains for this, like x-recoversupport[.]com and securelogins-x[.]com, and in some cases, researchers observed the campaign abusing Google’s ‘AMP Cache’ domain in order to bypass email detections and reroute the user to a phishing domain.

The criminal then takes over the account and begins using the accounts audience to advertise cryptocurrency scams. The high profile accounts allow criminals to maximise their financial profit by reaching a wider audience and collecting more victims.

Crypto scams are incredibly dangerous, and lucrative, with the FBI recently estimating in 2024 alone, the scams cost victims more money than ransomware.

Staying safe

To avoid such fraudulent schemes, investors should be ultra-careful that their investment is legitimate. The cryptocurrency market is largely unregulated, which makes it the perfect environment for scammers and criminals - so be sure to heavily research any investments before handing over your data or money.

The key part of this attack is the initial phishing email. Social engineering attacks like phishing are dangerous because they catch users off guard, naturally staying alert is the best defense.

Phishing attacks will prompt victims to reveal their personal information, like logins, credentials, financial information, and more. This puts victims at risk of identity theft or fraud.

It is true that some platforms will email you if there’s an unrecognized sign-in to a new device, which is what makes this campaign so convincing. It’s easy to say that users should be extra careful, but sometimes that’s just not enough, so here are some extra tips to stay protected.

First of all, create a strong and secure password, and crucially do not reuse passwords from one site to another - this helps by quarantining any account that has been breached.

Next, enable multi-factor authentication or MFA, especially for sites that hold medical or financial information. Although this can be a bit of a faff, it's a great extra layer of security and gives you a peace of mind knowing that criminals would struggle that bit more to access your data.

Another thing to look out for is mismatched or suspicious domains. If you receive an email you’re not expecting, especially one prompting action and including a link. Check the spelling of the domain, e.g. Faceb00k rather than Facebook. It’s never a bad idea to Google what the legitimate domain would be, either.

The final thing to look for is odd attachments - if the sender is unknown and the email contains links, images, or documents - this is a red flag. Qr codes are particularly dangerous, so don’t scan anything you’re not certain is safe.

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X CEO Linda Yaccarino is unexpectedly sweeping into CES 2025 for a keynote. The former NBC Universal executive, who joined X (formerly Twitter) as CEO in 2023 and had done little to nothing to dampen owner Elon Musk's incendiary use of the platform, will sit down with CBS News investigative journalist Catherine Herridge on January 7 at 1:30 PM PST.

The chat comes after a tumultuous couple of years at the head of the struggling social media platform. Yaccarino is no stranger to the interview stage, but she's been notoriously obtuse when asked point-blank about the activity on her platform. Her 2023 Vox Media interview is almost legendary, with some describing it "like something of HBO's Silicon Valley."

CES, which invited Yaccarino to speak, pitched her as something of a resilient innovator. "Linda’s career exemplifies the spirit of CES – innovation, resilience, and vision,” said CTA CEO Gary Shapiro in a press release where CTA President Kinsey Fabrizio, President, CTA, described her as a "visionary."

What that vision is, though, is hard to define. Since Yacarrino took the reigns, she's done nothing to move X back to a more inviting center (legions of people – including many celebrities – recently exited X to join BlueSky). In fact, the platform has become more closed off and fertile ground for dangerous misinformation. At a more practical level, the company has reportedly lost 72% of its value.

Larger influence

Still, Yacarrino's chat might be more compelling now than even three months ago. Her boss, Elon Musk, now sits at the right hand of soon-to-be President Donald Trump (this chat will take place just weeks before Trump is reinaugurated into office) and Musk is now using X and his 200 million followers on the platform to shape policy. A recent Tweet barrage helped temporarily sink a funding bill that would've kept the US government functioning for a few more months (a revised bill did pass).

Musk is also about to start co-running with Vivek Ramaswamy DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), which will look to suggest drastic cuts to the US government. Whatever decisions Musk and Ramaswamy make will likely be run through the X echo chamber, probably with live polls.

I don't expect Yacarrino to address any of this directly. She'll likely deflect questions on the health of the business, the worrisome rhetoric flourishing on it, and the possible conflicts that might exist between Musk's various businesses, his control of the increasingly influential platform, and his new unelected governmental role.

Since she's painting X in the release as "the global newsroom in your pocket," it's fairly certain Herridge will press her on how, with many reputable news outlets leaving the platform, X is still a newsroom.

Her answer might not make any sense, but guaranteed Musk will love it, and everyone on X will eat it up.

Enjoy the show at CES 2025.

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• There's a massive exodus of Twitter users to Bluesky
• A new extension lets you transfer over Twitter follows to Bluesky
• Sky Follower Bridge makes the Bluesky experience far better

It’s no secret that there’s been a massive exodus of X (formerly Twitter) users for a variety of reasons. Some are political, the main being users seeing the social media site shifting more right-wing in terms of content and rule creation and enforcement, which had slowly been taking effect but has now accelerated since X owner Elon Musk’s appointment to a new position in Donald Trump’s incoming government.

Other reasons are more function-oriented, like declining site stability, changes to features like Block that make the site unsafe to use, the sharp increase of spam bots, the paid blue checkmark epidemic, and more. There are also recent changes to the Terms of Service that subject every user to Twitter’s Grok AI bot scrapping their posts – including art and writing.

This perfect storm of massive deficits has resulted in a staggering exodus to Bluesky, a site founded by one of the former Twitter creators, Jack Dorsey. According to the official Bluesky account, there are currently 19 million users, and that number seems to grow each day.

However, a major program remains for those seeking to and have already relocated to the shiny new site: how do you recover all those followers you’ve built up for months and years?

What is Sky Follower Bridge?

Sky Follower Bridge is a handy extension that lets you find and follow people from Twitter. It’s available for both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, and you simply add the extension, log in to your Bluesky account through it, and then run it. At the same time, a tab is opened to either your following or follower count. It searches for matches through the handle, username, and any names in the bio.

According to the extension page, it can’t search for all Twitter followers at once “due to Twitter’s limitations.” Instead, you can use the Find More button at the bottom of the current results. This can be a bit time-consuming and not perfectly accurate, but it’s far easier than trying to find each person individually.

How Sky Follower Bridge changed me

When it came to Bluesky, I was as early adopter as possible with the invite system that had been in place at the time (now you can simply register like normal). I loved the interface being so similar to Twitter and the lack of drama and discourse thanks to its newness, but I found myself back on Twitter not long after due to the lack of activity on Bluesky.

This latest and largest exodus finally motivated me to return to the newer site, yet I faced the arduous task of transferring over my following count. When I tell you it took hours to find and follow maybe 30-50 people, this process alone made me nearly quit in frustration. But doom scrolling on Twitter actually saved me for once, as I found the Sky Follower Bridge extension through it.

Once I installed it, it took me less than an hour to find and follow every user on my following tab, with only one false positive that I immediately corrected. Soon, nearly everyone I followed returned the favor. Once I returned to my feed, that was where the magic happened. And by magic, I mean having a feed reminiscent of old-school Twitter filled with posts from my followers without all the alt-right posts, blue checkmark accounts, and endless spam.

Final thoughts

It’s rare that an extension extends beyond the practical and is capable of giving me such immense joy. But thanks to Sky Follower Bridge, I’ve finally transformed my Bluesky feed into something magical and addictive. It’s to the point where I’ve rarely checked my Twitter, and when I do, the atrocious state of it makes me physically recoil.

Bluesky certainly isn’t perfect, as it’s a new site that’s still ironing out the kinks — and quite a bit of kinks are still present. But now that I have a sizable chunk of the people I follow on Twitter on Bluesky, it feels far more like home than even a month ago. Thanks, Sky Follower Bridge.

• Bluesky has seen a million new users join since the US election
• Twitter (now known as X) is losing hundreds of thousands of users
• A Chrome extension lets you to find your friends from Twitter on Bluesky

Bluesky may become the micro-blogging social media app of choice for disillusioned Twitter users, if current trends continue.

Hundreds of thousands of people are seemingly fleeing X (formerly Twitter) in the wake of the US election, according to The Economic Times

It’s possible X chairman Elon Musk’s subsequent appointment to a new position in Donald Trump’s incoming government has pushed some politically conscious users away from the site.

The Verge reports that Bluesky Social has attracted more than a million new users to its decentralized micro-blogging service since the presidential election took place on November 4, suggesting some level of migration between the two social media services is possible.

After all, Bluesky is a remarkably similar platform to X, having begun as an experimental spin-off of what was then Twitter in 2019 under the leadership of founder Jack Dorsey.

As TechCrunch reports, Dorsey no longer sits on the board at Bluesky, and the company is now an independent public benefit corporation with CEO Jay Graber at the helm.

The Bluesky user base now stands at more than 15 million total users – a fair few less than the 586 million monthly active users on X, but still impressive for a platform that is technically independent of major social media companies.

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky offers a decentralized social media platform – that means the platform is not entirely controlled by one server or corporation.

When you log on to Bluesky, you also choose which instance you're signing in to.

Like fellow Twitter-like platform Mastodon, Bluesky can exist in multiple instances – meaning a version of the site can be set up to cater to certain communities.

Otherwise, it’s essentially very similar to X, with short text-based posts, image and video sharing, liking and reposting, and individual profiles.

Its former relation to Twitter and ease of use have made Bluesky a prime candidate for those looking for X alternatives post-election.

How do I switch to Bluesky from Twitter?

You can join Bluesky by downloading the app from the App Store or Google Play Store, or heading to bsky.app, and setting up an account with an email address.

Migrating an X account to Bluesky is a larger task that takes a bit more work – and there are no official channels that enable this.

The Sky Follower Bridge extension for Chrome and Firefox enables users to find the users they previously followed and were followed by on X on Bluesky.

Adding the extension, and then running it while signed in to Bluesky and with Twitter open to either the Following, Followers, List or Blocked pages, returns a list of matched Bluesky accounts, produced by scraping information from the Twitter page.

As ZDNet reports, Twitter has taken action to block apps and processes from using screen scraping, so there's no saying how long Sky Follower Bridge will actually work for.

There’s no simple way to import X posts (tweets) to Bluesky, but Wikihow details a rather complex method to import posts by using Python and Terminal on a Linux or Mac computer. There doesn’t seem to be a way to import posts to Bluesky on mobile yet.

Bluesky seems poised to become an important player in the social media space as users, and even news outlets, leave X. For the latest updates as we hear them, be sure to keep up with our social media coverage.

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Over the weekend various users of X noticed that they were being offered a free-tier version of Grok, X’s AI chatbot, to try. The free version comes with some limitations, however.

So far Grok has only been available on subscription, an approach that's markedly different from other AI generators like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s MetaAI and Google Gemini, which offer a free tier that has fewer features than the paid-for version. Similarly, Apple Intelligence is still yet to roll out completely, but will remain free for its first few years at least.

X user @lohansimpson posted a screenshot of the Grok invite and wrote, “Free Grok is coming(With limits)! It will be limited locations at first”.

Screenshots of the invitation to try Grok contain the text, “A free tier of Grok is now available in your region. Chat, generate images and analyze photos. Limits apply.”

According to a researcher on X who has the user name swak, users on the Grok free tier will be limited to 10 Grok 2 questions every two hours and 20 Grok 2 mini questions every two hours. Grok 2 and Grok 2 mini are different LLMs that X offers. You will also be restricted to analyzing up to three images a day.

It's not all good news for X users, because if those are the limitations on the free tier of Grok then it will be much more restricted than its competitors, like MetaAI.

Unrestricted images

Grok raised a lot of eyebrows, and quite a few questions, when Grok 2 was released in August this year containing the Flux image generator which had very few restrictions on its image-generation capabilities compared to other AI image generators.

While most AI image generators will stop short of letting you create images of politicians, celebrities, and copyrighted characters, like Superman or Iron Man, Grok seemed to be happy to let you create these type of images with abandon.

It’s not clear if the free version of Grok will have the same unrestricted access to the Flux image generator as the subscription service X currently offers, but a move to offer Grok to the wider X user base for free could dramatically increase the number of Grok users almost overnight, turning it into a real competitor to ChatGPT, Meta AI and Google Gemini.

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We list the best social media management tools, to make it simple and easy to market your business with multiple social medias by using a single interface.

Managing social media is especially important after the pandemic pushed customers online to do everything from shopping to social contacts. Therefore, connecting with customers online and maintaining a good reputation is now essential, as well as finding the most efficient ways to give them offers, deals, and news.

But there's no point spending time and resources on fantastic Facebook posts and tremendous tweets (or X posts) if you then don't know how to properly monitor the impact and influence. Counting followers only tells part of the story, as on average less than 2% of those users will actively engage with any content you post.

Social media management isn't easy - at least that's the view of Lasisi Joshua Gray, a social media manager with extensive experience in the field. "Social media management can be a complex and time-consuming task, especially for businesses with multiple platforms and a large audience," he said. "As a result, many businesses choose to either hire in-house social media managers or outsource their social media management to agencies or freelancers."

While social media is often considered essential by businesses, they often don't realize that social media audiences are not in a transactive state of mind, and so direct sales don't usually work unless consumers are time-limited. However, as a communication platform for brand development then social media can be very effective.

Getting the most out of your chosen social media platforms is going to be an integral part of your content marketing and overall online marketing strategy to help your business truly succeed.

Below, we'll take a look at the best social media management tools, based on tens of hours of usage, to help manage your social media posting, marketing, and management.

We've also featured the best email marketing services.

The best social media management tools of 2025 in full:

Best social media management tool overall

SEMrush is best known for being an inclusive SEO software platform, but the app also incorporates a couple of useful tools for social media management across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google My Business.

The social media poster helps to schedule and post to these different social media platforms, and includes an image editor, UTM-builder, and link shortener, for customizing your posts, which you can then publish immediately or according to an automated schedule. There's also the ability to manage ads specifically across Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and the Audience Network.

The social media tracker then allows you to track cross-platform engagement with users, helping to collect analytics for reports in a single dashboard. This includes both reactions to posts as well as mentions elsewhere. On top, you can also monitor competitors to determine how often they are posting.

The biggest strength, however, is the fact that SEMrush allows for integrating social media management with an overall SEO and marketing strategy, and provides a useful platform that brings everything together in one place.

Read our full SEMRush review.

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Best social media tracker tools

Hootsuite aims to provide an all-in-one platform for social media management across multiple sites. As expected, there's an option to search and filter through existing social media, in order to find brand mentions, insights, and demographic information.

Additionally, all of Hootsuite's plans have the option to schedule posts from multiple profiles across multiple social media platforms, which allows you to ensure any marketing campaigns are properly timed and targeted when and where they are needed. This is especially important when posts can be tagged to ensure you store them in the right place for use at the right time.

There's also an analytics feature to track and measure performance against KPIs. Reports are customizable, so you can ensure you display and read the data you need to and stay focused on that. Hootsuite is built to work for teams, not just individuals, and these features are key reasons why.

A number of integrations are also available, such as Asana, Slack, Mailchimp, Trello, and Zendesk, ensuring that you can work productively and efficiently to build your social media marketing and communications campaigns.

Read our full Hootsuite review.

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Best social media posting software

Sprout Social is first and foremost known as a one-stop shop for managing and scheduling all of your social media accounts through one simple-to-use platform. Very handy indeed for your company's social media administrator when they're trying to juggle Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.

But Sprout doubles as a powerful tool for analyzing your data, too, letting users sort by various demographic and geographic measures to quantify exactly what content is working for which followers.

The app can also manage multiple accounts and monitor keywords across all social media so that you know when your brand is being discussed, and helps your company respond to customers by directing messages to the people within the organization who need to action them.

You can try Sprout Social for free with its 30-day trial. If you like the app, starter plans cover up to five different social profiles, with additional plans offering more profiles, scope, and features.

Read our full Sprout Social review.

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Best social media management tool for automation

HubSpot Social Media Software is a suite of social media management tools available under HubSpot's Marketing Hub. The aim is to save time by prioritizing social connections you place most value on across all of the major social media platforms.

There are various management features available, such as for publishing and sharing content, monitoring mentions, and reporting to let know know not just levels of engagement but also how these translate into actual business metrics.

These tools are available as part of the HubSpot Marketing Hub, which means you can use them in conjunction with a range of other focused marketing tools. As above, this means not simply monitoring and managing your social media, but critically also ensuring that the work you put into it translates into some form of measuring business return.

If you're an existing HubSpot customer and user of its Sales, Service, Content, Operations, or Commerce tools, then adding on its social media manager is well worth considering, especially as there could be discounts.

Read our full Hubspot social media management review.

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Best social media post tracking tool

Rather like Sprout Social, Buffer is another all-rounder that lets you post to your platform and then analyze the results.

One of its major plus points is just how simple and straightforward Buffer is to use, while also offering flexibility. The fact that the app provides analytics in real-time makes instantly judging the impact of your content a doddle.

Use the "Top Post" icon to compare different forms of content to see which works best for each network, while the Buffer app also allows for seamless Google Analytics integration for tracking the success of your marketing campaigns.

Payment plans depend on whether you're looking to publish or analyze social media accounts, with different pricing for each based on the volume of accounts or published content you want to manage.

Read our full Buffer review.

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Best social media management tool for scheduling

Zoho Social offers a simple way to manage your brand on social media, by providing a complete social media management platform.

As well as managing multiple social media channels, there's also a posting calendar feature to see which posts have been scheduled for posting, and you can monitor your target keywords across conversations, allow for team collaboration from a single dashboard, and more.

The app also comes with a version specifically for the needs of marketing agencies, which allows for brand and communications management for client lists, while also adding support for white labeling.

Although Zoho doesn't offer many of the advanced features that the other options to, you can expect to be able to integrate Zoho Social with other Zoho tools, such as Zoho Workspace, Zoho Campaigns, and Zoho CRM.

Read our full Zoho Social review.

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Best social media management tool for monitoring

Agorapulse is another dedicated social media management platform, designed specifically to help agencies and businesses post and monitor across social media.

There's a flexible scheduling tool to queue, reschedule, or bulk upload posts, alongside a social inbox for monitoring replies to your posts, mentions elsewhere, as well as other important messages. Of course, there's also a reporting tool from which you can glean analytics relating to content and engagement data, with the option to download as CSV or PPT files.

Agorapulse is also designed to work with teams, so that individual members can be assigned specific posts, comments, or other specific tasks. There's also a cool feature for building a CRM database of followers and other social media users to track, and add notes on these.

Pricing is mainly based according to the number social profiles and users required, though the different plans also have different levels of data retention.

Overall, Agorapulse offers a great platform for agencies who may have more demanding needs than the ordinary business regarding the general management and monitoring of social media.

Read our full Agorapulse review.

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Best social media management tool for teams

Sendible offers a collaboration-focused social media management platform for teams, which also adds a range of special tools on top of the common defaults to make your social media posting easier.

As well as common scheduling, queuing, and calendar tools for posting, Sendible also lets users preview and customize posts on each individual platform, allowing you to optimize the content to display best on each. This is especially the case with image alignment and optimization.

Additionally, you can visualize posts on a shared calendar, making it easy to see at a glance where various client content is. And, if you're short of content, Sendible provides suggestions.

Social monitoring is also a key part of the platform, with various options included - not just for tracking your own content but also for user mentions, as well as monitoring competitors and targeted hashtags.

As with other social media managers, reporting is another core feature, with Sendible offering not just easy-to-produce reports but also email reporting for clients as required. There's also Google Analytics integration to track clickthroughs and user behavior for traffic that comes through from social media channels.

Sendible offers a strong suite of nicely presented tools, and the collaboration aspect of Sendible is one of its strongest features, allowing teams to work on assigned tasks and have content approved before they are scheduled, to ensure quality controls.

Read our full Sendible review.

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Best for social media brand management

The popular Traject Social social media management platform, now rebranded as Fanbooster, offers ways to connect marketers with a wider platform that includes SEO, reputation management, ecommerce, as well as analytics.

Fanbooster offers a white label platform covering all major social media management needs, such as scheduling, smart inbox, monitoring, and reporting, plus team tools, custom reports, and integrations.

Aimed at agencies, Fanbooster helps manage multiple platforms for multiple clients. The white label aspect is especially valuable for allowing you to not only brand your own client reports, but also easily scale across your client base. There are also dedicated Android and iOS apps, offering schedule, review, and publish content tools directly from your smartphone.

However, while Traject offers other marketing tools, these are not integrated, which is a shame as others such as SEMrush do offer this. That means Fanbooster is available to buy only as a standalone service.

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Best social media tool for flexible management

SocialPilot offers a social media management platform for small businesses, agencies, and enterprises.

As with similar platforms, the suite is a single place from which to publish and schedule your social media posts. There's also a social inbox for monitoring replies, comments, and mentions, as well as analytics that offers white label reporting.

Users can post directly via the web, mobile, or browser extensions, and content suggestions are provided to help. Agency tools allow for collaboration among team members, along with built-in workflows. Enterprise clients enjoy a dedicated account manager along with priority phone and email support.

SocialPilot includes the ability to schedule up to 500 posts, along with images, using a post planner that allows you to easily review content and map them to the right social media platform.

SocialPilot can also connect client accounts directly through the software, rather than having to ask clients to provide their login details directly. In an age where cybercrime concerns are important, clients may be especially reassured by this.

All in all, SocialPilot offers another strong social media platform, which is accessible for both small businesses as well as teams within agencies.

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We've also featured the best landing page creators.

Honorable mentions

The growth in social media has resulted in an explosive growth of apps and software for helping companies monitor their presence and manage their engagement. Here are some more tools to consider to help with that:

StatusBrew offers another social media management platform, aimed for use across sales, marketing, and customer care teams. As well as campaign management, there are also reporting and analytics features to keep track of your engagement and overall brand health. On top of that, there are a number of popular integrations available, such as Slack, Zendesk, Mailchimp, and Shopify.

X Pro has become the essential X (formerly Twitter) management tool for many users. Provided directly by X, Pro allows you to better filter messages from followers, as well as offering a single dashboard from which you can monitor posts, messages, notifications, and trending hashtags. There are also search tips, shortcuts, and various settings provided to manage your monitored content.

Facebook Pages Manager is an app for Android and iOS that helps directly manage your Facebook pages on the go from your phone or other mobile device. This allows you to get notifications, read and reply to messages, as well as link Facebook and Instagram accounts together. Standard page management features such as settings, performance, and reach, can also be managed by the app.

Best social media management tool FAQs

Which social media management tool is best for you?

How we tested the best social media management tool

To test the best social media management tools, we looked at what features they offer, how comprehensive and diverse their services are, and what sizes of businesses they're ideal for. We evaluated how easy it was to set up these tools, their learning curve, and their interface.

We considered their collaboration features, the quality of the customer support, and the documentation available. We also assessed how scalable the tools were, how powerful their analytics were, and their pricing plans, among other things.

Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

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• The company is currently investigating the attack
• The hacker claims to have stolen 40 GB of compressed data
• Schneider Electric's Jira system was breached

Schneider Electric has confirmed suffering its second cyberattack and data leak in recent months.

Earlier this week, a threat actor alias Greppy added a new post on X, claiming to have breached the corporation:

“Hey Schneider Electric, how was your week? Did someone accidentally steal your data and you noticed, shut down the services and restarted without finding them? Now you shut down again but the criminals seem to have taken more juicy data,” the tweet reads.

Hiding the IP address

This prompted BleepingComputer to reach out to the company with further questions.

"Schneider Electric is investigating a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to one of our internal project execution tracking platforms which is hosted within an isolated environment," the firm told the publication. "Our Global Incident Response team has been immediately mobilized to respond to the incident. Schneider Electric's products and services remain unaffected."

Greppy also posted the loot on a dark web site, saying they accessed the company’s Atlassian Jira system.

“This breach has compromised critical data, including projects, issues, and plugins, along with 400,000 rows of user data, totaling more than 40GB compressed data,” the ad reads. “To secure the deletion of this data and prevent its public release, we require a payment of $125,000 USD in Baguettes,” the hackers said.

Obviously, the attacker doesn’t want hundreds of thousands of baguettes - it’s a joke, since Schneider Electric is a French business. Instead, they just want the victim company to acknowledge the breach within 48 hours. Since the company did just that, let’s see if Greppy keeps their word.

Schneider Electric is a multinational corporation specializing in energy management and automation solutions. It builds technologies and services that increase efficiency and sustainability across various sectors, including buildings, data centers, and infrastructure.

Via BleepingComputer

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X has announced sizeable changes to the pricing structure of its API subscriptions, justifying the considerable jump by adding more functionality.

The monthly cost of the Basic API tier has now doubled, increasing from $100 per month to $200. In return, developers using APIs for various applications, like data analysis and engagement tools, can now process 15,000 posts, up from 10,000.

The company confirmed in an X post that new API endpoints, such as ‘reposts_of_me' and community searches, will also become available.

X Basic API tier costs rise

The Pro tier’s $5,000 monthly rate remains unchanged, but adjustments have been made to its usage caps to offer subscribers more value for money.

The social media platform has also introduced annual plans for both the Basic and Pro tiers, priced at $2,100 and $54,000, thus marking a 12.5% and 10% saving over monthly payments.

The company continues to offer a free tier, but the post limit has been reduced from 1,500 to 500 per month, with the read API capped at 100 requests, all in an effort to push customers to part with their money.

X shared on its developer community page: “Since our initial launch a year ago, the Self Serve X API has been used by developers to support a wide range of use-cases.”

Responses shared in the comments of the platform’s X post are mixed – while many sing the praises of the introduction of free experimental read access, others criticize the company for vastly overcharging for API access.

The changes form part of CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to monetize X and stamp out bots, which have historically plagued the site.

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• X is apparently going on a security hiring spree at last

It’s been almost two years since Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter - now X, after which the Tesla CEO laid off around 80% of staff.

These cuts included the ‘trust and safety’ team being slashed from 4,026 to 2,849, with full time moderators were halved from 107 to just 51.

Now, it seems X is back to hiring, as two dozen jobs have been listed on its careers site - for both cybersecurity and safety roles.

Band-aid on a bullet hole

The listings mention a number of locations for the new roles, with major US tech hubs such as New York City and Palo Alto, California included alongside X's international offices at Manila in the Philippines and Delhi in India. 

X announced in January 2024 it would be creating a new Trust and Safety center at its office in Austin, Texas, where a hundred full-time content moderators would be based, and these roles also appear to be included.

Of course, there's still a very significant deficit from 2022’s staffing levels, but the move does point to a pretty significant symbolic defeat for Musk, who bought the platform in 2022 to ‘protect free speech’, but instead has undoubtedly ushered in an era of virtually unrestricted content.

This predictably landed X in hot water, with the platform recently shut down in Brazil after refusing to ban accounts spreading disinformation and hate messages - although Musk insisted this was political censorship. In a similar vein, almost half of all advertisers have left the site - and X lost nearly half a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2023.

Whilst the moderation staff will likely be a very welcome move, it’s difficult to imagine that just a few more staff will mitigate the ‘free for all’ philosophy introduced by Musk. On the security side, X is looking for threat intelligence specialists and security engineers to help secure the site.

In recent times, X has struggled with privacy and security concerns as well as bugs and crashes - worsened by the loss of staff. The quality assurance testing (or lack thereof) seems to have led to multiple issues, including external links breaking.

In an uncertain time for the platform, many users will be looking to Musk for some bold changes in order to make the site more secure - and this hiring spree could be a step in the right direction.

Via TechCrunch

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• Elon Musk brings controversial AI chatbot Grok to more X users in bid to halt exodus
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Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has modified its Grok chatbot after calls from election officials in five US states to ensure the information it gives out is accurate.

The move comes after Grok falsely claimed the ballot deadline had passed in nine states, meaning the candidate options were set in stone for the November 2024 US Presidential election. This is particularly alarming considering this followed the announcement which confirmed President Joe Biden was halting his presidential bid, with Kamala Harris receving the Democratic nomination.

Grok has now been amended to direct users to the nonpartisan election information site Vote.gov in response to any related queries, which the protesting officials say is a “trustworthy resource”.

Grok election misinformation

The 2024 election cycle has been no stranger to misinformation so far, with AI-generated content taking the top spot for the driver of ‘fake news’.

One reason for this is Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on an extensive amount of online data, with no process to filter out inaccurate information - essentially meaning they can learn facts that aren’t true.

The amendment has not stopped Grok from generating misleading images and using real people’s likeness in questionable ways upon request. Musk introduced the chatbot as ‘rebellious’ and boasted its ability to answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”. Controversial examples of the AI’s creations include images of celebrities doing drugs and holding guns - it's a real mystery that other chatbots reject these requests.

Grok is currently only available for X premium subscribers, but the images can be shared to anyone. The site continues to concern watchdog groups as hate speech and misinformation campaigns have thrived since Musk took over the platform in 2022.

Via AP News

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The man who regrets buying Twitter and the man physically incapable of regret at all were set to lock horns last night in an ‘audio space’ on X - but were initially set back by a series of technical issues. 

Elon Musk, pathologically unable to feel the emotion of embarrassment, blamed a supposed DDOS (distributed denial of service attacks) for his inability to start his "interview" with former US President Donald Trump on time.

It was eighteen minutes after the scheduled start time that Musk grasped to blame anyone but himself, although claims of a DDOS attack were immediately undermined by the fact that every other part of Twitter was working as intended, and, per The Verge, the event was diverted by Trump’s audio feed playing ‘lo-fi techno’ for thirty minutes.

Tweets? You mean like Twitter? 

Musk claims ‘the system’ was tested with eight million concurrent listeners earlier that day, which is apt in a story about two people who demonstrably exist above truth as a concept.

Musk’s latest attempt to soothe his buyers' remorse by turning Twitter into a sort of awful Thunderdome for political events went much the way as the last one did. Back in the halcyon days of May 2023, Twitter’s engineering boss Foad Dabiri quit the day after then-Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis’ campaign launch was marred by technical issues.

Though Musk claimed last night the non-existent DDOS attack proved that “there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what [Trump] has to say,” he was less keen on free speech when the journalist Don Lemon, piloting a new show for X, dared to ask him about content moderation on the platform and lightly criticize his approach of running it like a town square but after abolishing the local council. Mr. Lemon is now suing Musk for alleged fraud and breach of contract.

He has less leverage over Trump, who had largely decamped to his own Trump Media-owned Truth Social (where the posts are called ‘truths’ and the hypoxia is free) after being banned from under-old-management Twitter in 2021.

Trump seems to be content with letting Trump Media crash and burn, however, with his return to X. Time will tell if he’ll be sticking around, or what the ultimate fate of Trump Media and Truth Social will be if he does.

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X (formerly Twitter) thinks it’s circumvented some of the issues other social media companies such as Meta have bumped up against in regard to training its AI, Grok, on user data and information - but there’s something you can do about it. 

X quietly added a setting that allows your posts, interactions, inputs, and results to be used to train and ‘fine-tune’ Grok. X now features a checkbox in the app’s settings that is checked by default, and this setting’s disclaimer also mentions that your user data might be shared with Grok’s service provider, xAI.

How to switch off data sharing with Grok and xAI

If for whatever reason, you’re an X user who doesn’t want their data to be used to train Grok, you can disable this new setting and even delete your conversation history with Grok. As noted by TechCrunch, this isn’t possible in the X mobile app, but you can do this by going to your X account settings page on desktop.

How to switch off X’s data sharing with Grok and xAI: 

1. Navigate to the Settings and privacy page on X using a desktop device. You can locate it by clicking the hyperlinked page or by opening X, clicking the icon of ellipses in a circle in the left-hand side panel, and selecting Settings and privacy.

2. Click on the Privacy and safety section.

3. Click on Grok. You may need to scroll down a fair bit to reach it. 

4. Click the blue box with a white check in it to uncheck it and disable the setting. 

You can delete your conversation history with Grok in this same location by clicking the option in red text which reads ‘Delete conversation history.’ 

We’ll have to see if X’s approach breaches any regulations or laws, but until then, it’s up to you to take charge of your data and information. 

British consumer association Which? has warned users of fake airline accounts on X looking to steal their personal information, whilst also criticizing the social media network for not reacting to the threat fast enough.

Which? said that virtually every major airline operating in the UK, including British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Tui, Virgin Atlantic, and Wizz Air, were all being impersonated. 

The modus operandi of the scammers is quite simple: they use bots to automatically crawl social media interactions, looking for people dissatisfied with their airline’s service - which could be a delayed flight, lost luggage, or anything else.

Reacting too slow

The scammers would then reach out to the victim, either by posting a comment in the thread, or reaching out directly. Their message would be almost identical to what the airlines usually post, apologizing for the inconvenience caused. 

However, the message would also come with an extra link, leading to a malicious landing page where the attackers would harvest people’s sensitive data. Alternatively, they would ask for their phone number, to be able to reach out directly and come to a resolution.

With these types of scams, the attackers are hoping the victim won’t realize they’re not talking to an official account.

Which? also criticized X for being too slow to remove these accounts from the platform. Apparently, reporting fake accounts to X “seems to have limited effect” as the majority of the bogus posts and accounts “were still live at the time of writing.”

X’s terms of use state that users impersonating organizations will be permanently suspended, and it told Which? that it took down all of the fake accounts the consumer group identified. 

Furthermore, an X spokesperson told the publication: “On X, you may not misappropriate the identity of individuals, groups, or organizations or use a fake identity to deceive others.”

"Accounts that pose as another person, group, or organization in a confusing or deceptive manner may be permanently suspended under X’s misleading and deceptive identities policy.”

Via BBC

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Nintendo has announced that Switch users won't be able to share screenshots directly to X (formerly Twitter) next month.

In a post shared to the website today (May 9), the company confirmed it will be ending X/Twitter support for Nintendo Switch on June 10, saying it will "discontinue integration" and "the ability to send friend requests to friends on social media (social media integration) from within the Nintendo Switch friend suggestions feature."

Nintendo provides more details on its official support page where it also confirms that posting features in Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 will also be adjusted.

More specifically, when posting from the mailbox in Splatsville, Inkopolis Plaza, or Inkopolis Square in Splatoon 3, players will no longer be able to post to X/Twitter or Facebook, "the data will be sent directly to Nintendo servers".

The same applies to Splatoon 2 in Inkopolis Square, with Nintendo explaining that "characters that appear and posts that are displayed in the Square will be replaced by data already prepared within the game software."

In response to Nintendo's decision, the official @xGaming account said its partnership "remains strong" and that it's working with the company to ensure a smooth transition for users.

"The gaming community is one of the largest and most vibrant communities on our platform, and we are dedicated to enhancing and supporting gaming-related features," the post reads.

"As part of Nintendo's planned discontinuation of sharing content to X from the Nintendo Switch, from June 11th, users will need to download Switch gameplay media directly to their smartphones and share it natively on our platform."

Although Nintendo didn't specify why it will be ending X/Twitter support, however, it's reported that companies could be charged around $42,000 a month to uphold integration following the website's API changes in March 2023.

Microsoft ended its Xbox integration support in May the same year the new policy was added, followed by Sony with PlayStation support in November.

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Details spotted by the automated account @XUpdatesRadar have highlighted upcoming potential changes coming to the shriveled remains of Twitter. One of the more crucial changes spotted by the account (which monitors text string changes on the app) states that "New accounts are required to pay a small annual fee before you're able to post, like, bookmark, and reply. This is to reduce spam and to create a better experience for everyone. You can still follow accounts and browse X for free."

So, if you’ve managed to escape being on X/Twitter thus far and you’re looking to make a new account, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll be asked to pay a small annual fee to verify that you’re not a bot. According to Mashable this actually started last year in New Zealand and the Philippines, to try to reduce spam activity on the app as part of the ‘Not a Bot’ program. 

Elon Musk confirmed this change on Twitter and stated it was necessary as “Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.”

We don’t know how much the fee will be as of right now, though in New Zealand and the  Philippines, it was set at $1, which is not awful - but does feel like a violation of one of the main draws of social media.

I can’t think of any mainstream social media platform that requires you to pay to join, and if we’re being honest here, the influx of trash bot accounts is all Musk’s fault anyway. There’s been a noticeable rise in bot activity - as any regular X user can likely attest - since the Tesla CEO took over the site. Laying off 70% of Twitter’s staff and changing moderation policies, redefining ‘hate speech’, and generally allowing the platform to fall into disarray is a bad idea for keeping your platform human-led. 

A new wave of subscriptions? 

This post on Reddit is from just seven months ago and has dozens of users complaining about how up until recently, they’ve never had this many bot interactions, spam comments, and even bots requesting to follow them. Pre-Musk, it was a rarity for a bot to actually request to follow you.  Even Paul Tassi wrote in Forbes that the reality is that “this is almost certainly the result of Musk laying off 70% of Twitter’s staff where yes, the site is still functional, but the quality has been degraded and whoever used to actually be keeping at least some measure of the bots in check is now gone.” 

Let’s be real… 75%+ of X is bots now right? from r/Twitter

That being said, that’s not really the reason why this policy has me worried about the future of my beloved social media apps. Remember last year, when Netflix decided to hike its prices and ‘crackdown on password sharing’ - a move that was incredibly unpopular amongst consumers, but kicked off a wave of other platforms doing the same? 

That’s what I’m thinking about as Musk muses on charging new X/Twitter users worldwide to engage with the platform. Companies are always looking for another way to squeeze subscriptions out of you, and all it takes is a big name in the industry to implement a change we can’t fight against for the rest to follow. Who’s to say it’ll continue to be reserved for new accounts only? Or that Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook won’t take up the same policy and add their own irritating caveats?

Overall, while many of us may not be affected by this change as users with existing accounts, we do have to keep an eye out for how this policy could escalate if it does. It could usher in the end of free social media platforms - or, it could just be another one of Musk’s confusing policy changes that we all freak out about but end up having to accept or forget about. After all, he’s been banging on for ages about changes to X that have never actually materialized…

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Something weird is going on at X (formerly Twitter) and I don't know how to feel about it. After Elon Musk announced late last month in a Tweet that X would be granting Premium subscriptions to accounts with at least 2500 verified subscriber followers, the service is also reassessing who automatically gets verified blue check marks.

It appears I'm being considered as one of those users and the notifications have left me confused. To understand my conflicting emotions, we need to go back.

Elon Musk's purchase in 2022, brisk dismantling, and subsequent rebranding of one of the most dominant social media platforms ever was astonishing to witness and gave even the most casual Twitter fan whiplash.

Watching Twitter devolve into X was painful, and losing verification on a service where I generously published thousands of tech-related, newsy, off-the-cuff, and silly thoughts for 15 years gutted me.

A mess made worse

I'd never argue that Musk bought a healthy business (a recent read of Battle for the Bird by Kurt Wagner reminded me of just how mismanaged the business was long before Musk carried his sink over the threshold). Even so, Musk's efforts have intentionally undermined the foundation of what built Twitter into a valuable and trusted real-time, news, info, and entertainment service.

Musk targeted Twitter's existing blue check and verification system because he believed Twitter handed them out unfairly and, especially, because Musk distrusts the media and felt the voices of mainstream journalists and media companies were unfairly elevated on the platform.

Maybe that was true, but by wiping away all verification checks and then, essentially, putting them up for sale, X and Musk ended up with a legion of random users who wield their blue checks like a cudgel. They had no verified information to share, no news to impart, just an axe to grind, and the blue check helped their voices rise above others, especially once verified sources with access to real news lost their verification and blue checks.

I missed Musk's tweet about giving some users free Premium accounts and, even if I had, I wouldn't have assumed I reached the threshold. This morning, however, I saw that my account suddenly had Premium account access. A Premium account (typically $8 / £8 / AU$13 a month) can tweet longer posts and videos, undo posts, edit posts, see fewer ads, and, get boosted visibility for their replies.

See me, hear me

Anyone who has used X in the last 12 months or so will tell you that posting on the platform can feel like shouting in the darkness. No one can see you, few can hear you. The satisfaction I once had of posting and engaging on the platform is long gone.

Suddenly having a Premium account doesn’t change my perspective on a service that can often feel like wading into a raging dumpster fire.

However, just a few tweets below the Premium alert was the notification that my account was being evaluated for a blue check. I hadn’t asked for this (I also never asked for my original blue check that showed up 12 years ago). 

Prior to this, if you paid for an account, you automatically got the blue check (pending some identity verification). This would be the first time the X subscription service is separated from the blue check system. There’s no indication that I will actually get that blue check, but I’ll admit that the possibility of getting it back under this new regime is perplexing. There's a fundamental part of me that wants it back, and then a rational part that reminds me the place is still a hellscape.

An olive branch

Leaving aside my concern, these changes may be the first sign that even Musk knows he made a mistake, that most current, paying blue checks are just a bunch of angry randos who are undermining X's overall content quality and safety.

Reinstating “trusted” blue checks could be a signal to fleeing advertisers that X wants to return or at least edge in the direction of trustworthy sources – or at least balancing the boosts some incendiary tweets see from extremists with real news promoted by blue check verified sources.

It‘s no longer clear what qualifies for a check and “verification,” and, as I said, my fate is far from certain. Even if I do get the blue check, then what? I’m certain there are many other formerly verified Twitter users who received the same notice and are now contemplating their next move. 

Is this a return to the halcyon days of Twitter past when blue check accounts delivered on the ground news accounts you can trust? Probably not, but I won’t deny that this latest development is intriguing.

Postscript: Shortly after this post published, Mr. Ulanoff's Blue Check returned. He reportedly still doesn't know how to feel about it.

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X's (formerly Twitter) new phone and video call feature may be one of the biggest social media privacy and security blunders I've seen in a long time.

Last week, X enabled on-platform audio and video calling for everyone. Not just those paying for X Premium ($8-a-month) but for average, everyday, non-verified X users.

Sounds wonderful, right? A no-cost way to call anyone and everyone on X. Except it's not.

Without asking, X enabled audio and video calling for X's roughly 550 million users. It defaults to "People you follow" and at least appears to require that they also follow you.

The big problem, though, is that with almost 20 years on the platform, many of us followed and have been followed by a lot of people whom we do not really know all that well or do not even want to know anymore. Did we at one time accept a direct message or send one to them? Sure. But that was eons ago, and perhaps we just forgot to unfollow them.

Now picture this. Any of those followers (whom you follow), can drop into an existing Direct Messages thread, select the little phone icon that appears next to the profile pic of their X contact and immediately initiate a call (audio or video). There's no prompt asking if this is a good idea or reminding you to DM them over text first. You select the call mode and X launches the call. Surprise!

The truth is that most of us prefer text messaging over calls. Audio and video calls are reserved for our closest friends and family (and the required office video conference calls).

And while I've created some close bonds with my Twitter (X) friends, almost none of them have my phone number nor do I have theirs. Most of them would be shocked to receive a voice or video call from me.

I get what Elon Musk is trying to do here, make X a do-it-all platform, something akin to China's WeChat. It might be a worthwhile ambition if it weren't for X's myriad problems like negative public sentiment and a significant loss of advertisers because of the platform's endless pipeline of vitriol and some of the stances taken by Tweeter-in-Chief, Elon Musk.

No one that I know asked for Twitter...er...X..to add this feature, and certainly no one expects such a thing to be turned on by default.

X Audio and Video calling capability is a privacy and security disaster in the making and X and Elon Musk should set it to off by default immediately.

In the meantime, if you're still on X, you can open the DM panel in the mobile app, and toggle the feature off. At the very least, you might want to turn on "Enhanced call privacy" to hide your IP address from contacts during calls (I can't believe Musk left that on by default, too). 🤦‍♂️

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As you might have already seen, Elon Musk fired shots at Microsoft on X (the bloated digital corpse once known as Twitter) over the latter’s mandatory account requirements for setting up a new Windows 11 laptop.

In a post on Sunday, Musk complained “Just bought a new PC laptop and it won’t let me use it unless I create a Microsoft account, which also means giving their AI access to my computer! This is messed up.”

Now, I hate to be seen agreeing with the internet’s most stable billionaire, but he’s not entirely wrong – it’s an unending source of frustration in the modern day that almost everything seems to require an account, from your laptop to your home security system.

Of course, Musk is a bit wrong. You actually can set up a new Windows laptop without logging into a Microsoft account, as the Community Notes feature on X helpfully added – and when the CEO fired back at his own website’s community-driven fact-checking feature, a further note confirmed that while it’s not as simple as it was on Windows 10, there is a complicated workaround for account-less Windows 11 setups.

Logging in, checking out

But why must it be so complicated? Most of the best laptops on the market right now run on Windows 11, and Musk is correct about the fact that creating a Microsoft account does involve sharing a certain amount of your personal data with the tech giant. The option to set up a laptop without an account used to be commonplace, but it’s rapidly eroding.

As I said before, it’s not a problem unique to Windows computers. In fact, Musk might want to avoid throwing any stones in that greenhouse, since Neowin pointed out that you need a Tesla account to drive one of Musk’s electric vehicles, and I've personally been annoyed by how poorly X now functions in a browser without logging in. It’s getting harder and harder in this day and age to find technology that you can simply switch on and use.

The reasoning behind it is obvious with only a little examination: in our increasingly digital lives, data is king, and forcing users to make an account to use their product or service is just another seemingly innocuous way to gather that data.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Microsoft (and every other company that forces its customers to make accounts) is planning to do anything nefarious with your personal data – it’s mostly for targeted advertising purposes, which can be irritating but isn’t inherently dastardly. But at the same time, I do think that anyone should be able to buy a laptop and use it immediately without having to create a log of one’s personal information on Microsoft’s servers.

Accounts as far as the eye can see

Apart from anything, I have dozens if not hundreds of accounts for various platforms and tools. Sure, it makes sense for some stuff to have an account; I appreciate that I need to log into a secure environment to access my emails, but do I really need an account to book a hotel room or view an Instagram post my boyfriend sends me? I never used to.

This widespread propagation of account requirements has been synonymous with the slow death of web apps. I used to be able to click a link and simply view its contents on my browser; now, it either force-opens an app or gives me a diet version of the original web app that prompts me to download something with every single click I try to make. Surely I can’t be the only one annoyed by this?

In yet another turn-up for the books, Musk is also right about the proliferation of AI features within Windows 11. Microsoft’s Copilot assistant is steadily seeding itself throughout the OS, with AI tools popping up in everything from the Photos app to Microsoft Paint. How much of our data is being harvested to feed these AI models? Microsoft’s TOS do state that no personally identifying information will be sacrificed at the altar of machine learning, but that the rather vaguely-defined ‘telemetry data’ can (and will) be used.

I use a Windows laptop – the excellent HP Spectre x360 – for both work and personal projects, including creative writing (mostly short stories and a handful of novels I’ll likely never finish), and I don’t particularly like the idea of an AI leering at my work over my metaphorical shoulder. So, and as much as it pains me to say it, Musk actually has a pretty good point. 

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As I write this, I feel a bit like a broken record, reporting again how the United States Supreme Court could, with a ruling today (Monday or soon after), decide the fate of social media as we know it. Justices could choose to leave content moderation decisions in the hands of these companies or designate them all icons of free and unfettered speech. 

The two cases, one from Florida and one from Texas, both revolve around claims that Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and other social media platforms are unfairly banning content primarily from right-wing users and sources. The claims mostly rise out of a flashpoint in US history: the January 6th riots and storming of the US Capitol. At the time, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media companies deplatformed Former President Donald Trump out of fears that further posts from him would ignite more violence. In this same era, the companies also sought to weed out what they saw as dangerous misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccinations. If the two cases are successful, they would radically alter social media companies' ability to moderate and ban content.

It's one of the biggest and most fraught US Supreme Court cases of the year, but perhaps the question for the justices boils down to what these platforms really are: publishers or utilities. Except, I don't think it's that simple.

Is it possible to be a utility and content curator? Probably not, but even a utility must ensure that the service it delivers and the contents of its delivery – electric, gas, water, communication, or television signals – are of high quality and safe for human consumption.

Social media platforms, thanks to a portion of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Section 230, have enjoyed the protections and privileges of utilities and not suffered the liabilities endured by content curators and publishers like, say, The New York Times.

Moderation in a changing world

Naturally, those rules were crafted long before the age of social media and decades before we understood how the consumption of social media affects our surprisingly malleable human minds. Sure, we had AOL and bulletin boards in the 1980s and 1990s but nothing truly prepared us for Twitter (now X), Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms that consume our screens and huge portions of our days (have you checked your Screen Time lately?).

Young minds are especially vulnerable to algorithmically massaged data fed to us like highly targeted firehouses of content and ideas. Social media has the power to shape our perception of the world or, at the very least reinforce it. In a way, social media has worked in opposition to publishing and media, which once sought to illuminate and rationalize the world through the discovery and sharing of facts.

When politicians, companies, global powers, and others realized that they could not just participate in social media but help shape the messages delivered on it, they took advantage of the platforms' agnostic stance. Twitter and YouTube didn't care what you posted. Content moderation rules were basic and obvious back then, usually mostly dealing with adult content as if that would be our biggest problem. No one foresaw the future and certainly no one foresaw January 6th.

This won't end well

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Texas and Florida, social media will change but not in a good way. You can already see what it might be like on X where free speech at all costs proponent Elon Musk has almost destroyed the platform by, if not encouraging, leaving the gates open for trolling, hate speech, and significant misinformation (quite a bit of it coming direct from Musk himself).

SCOTUS could rob these platforms of their most basic moderation capabilities. It would be like telling the water plant that you can't purify our water without explaining to every customer why you're removing lead and other contaminants. Social media is in a constant battle with content and information polluters. If it can't automate some of the moderation, the platforms will be overrun and soon unusable.

Do I think these platforms should be able to, when asked, explain their decisions? Yes, but I guarantee that YouTube and others make millions of automated decisions every day. Most of them go unappreciated by us because we can't miss what we don't see and we should be thankful for most of the things we don't see.

Over the last several years, I've heard from many people on both sides of the political spectrum who believe they've been shadowbanned by social media companies. I take this as a sign that there's some balance. Social media is not looking to ban you specifically, they're just blocking objectionable, questionable, or even blatantly incorrect or dangerous content. They get it wrong – a lot – but not as much as they get right.

Censorship is bad when it happens, but social media without content moderation would be downright dangerous. The US Supreme Court must know this and understand that there is no such thing as perfect content moderation and a world without it is probably perfectly awful.

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X (previously known as Twitter) will now let its users login with a passkey instead of a password - but only on iOS devices.

X announced its intentions to adopt the passwordless technology a while back, and now it has launched the feature for iPhone users. It allows for a quicker way to login, only requiring users to authenticate with whatever they use to lock their device, such as their fingerprint, FaceID, or PIN. 

They are also thought to be safer, since the underlying cryptographic key is generated by the device and not known to anyone, not even the user. This means they are phishing-resistant, so cybercriminals can't try and coax them out of targets using fake emails and social engineering tactics.

Only for iPhones

Passkeys are the brainchild of the FIDO Alliance, who set the technological standards for them. They use the WebAuthn standard, which is a key component of the FIDO2 specifications. Most of big tech are board level members of the alliance, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

The private portion of the passkey is stored on device and never shared with X. 

To setup passkeys on X, login to the X app on iPhone and navigate to "Settings and privacy" under "Your account". Then go to "Security and account access" and then "Security". Tap "Passkey" under "Additional password protection" and follow the instructions. You can also delete a passkey from the same menu at any time. 

Although X isn't making passkeys mandatory, it does strongly encourage users to start using them. Currently, users must have an account with X that is secured with a password first, before they can then setup a passkey, although the company says users should "stay tuned" on this front.

Since iOS devices are the only ones capable of logging into X with a passkey (for now), users will have their passkey synced across their Apple devices thanks to Apple's Keychain password manager, which means that multiple iOS devices can be used to login to X with a passkey.

If a user loses all their devices containing their passkey, then a password can still be used to login to X, or users can recover their passkeys from Apple using the iCloud Keychain Escrow.

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Video and voice calls will now be available to Android users on X (formerly Twitter), however, they will require either a Premium or Premium Plus tier subscription. 

iOS users gained this function in October 2023, and now Android has finally caught up. Only Twitter users willing to pay for the aforementioned subscription tiers will be able to active call other users, but there's still some call functionality for non-premium users.

Any X user can receive video or voice calls and they can control who they can receive calls from in the direct messages settings. Users can receive calls from accounts they follow or have in their address book by default. However, if they want to call another user they will need to have received a direct message from said person at least once before. Users will also need to have push notifications enabled so they won’t miss when they are being called.

Audio and video calls can be found in the DM settings tab. Call preferences can then be managed in the settings page allowing users to choose from contacts, verified users, and followed accounts. Additional details on audio and video calls can be found in the X Help Center.

 How much will it cost? 

Premium tier membership to X starts at $8.00 / £8.00 / AUS$10 per month or $84.00 / £84 / AUS$105 per year and will give users access to video and voice calls as well as other features like editing, longer posts, and the infamous blue checkmark. 

The Android app of X is currently sitting at a 3.6 rating on the Google Play Store with some recent reviews criticizing the stability of the app. Some users are questioning adding these features when WhatsApp, Discord, and (i)Message offer something like this already.

Their inclusion could be part of Elon Musk’s strategy to make X a “a single application that encompasses everything,”, and to evolve it into a single multi-functional app like Facebook.

While an interesting option, it is unclear if it will tempt more users to purchase the Premium subscriptions but it would only really be useful to connect with strangers and those you don’t already have contact information for.  

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has revealed more details surrounding the recent hack of its social media accounts, including some slightly embarassing details around how the attack was possible.

The SEC X account was hacked on January 10, with the single malicious act being a tweet announcing that it had allowed the use of Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETF). However, the announcement was deleted 20 minutes later and the SEC announced that its X account had been compromised.

Now the SEC has announced that not only did the account not have multi-factor authentication (MFA) turned on, but the account was breached in a SIM-swapping attack.

SEC disabled its own MFA

In a statement, the SEC revealed hackers were able to access the account through a SIM-swapping attack, where a hacker gains control of a phone number by tricking the providers into transferring control of the phone number to the hackers device. This gave them access to any and all incoming texts and calls to the target device.

This allowed the hacker to reset the password to the SEC X account and publish its post, which caused the price of Bitcoin to spike to $48,000 before dropping by 6% after it was confirmed as false. The SEC then announced later the same day that while the original announcement was indeed false, they had actually approved Bitcoin ETFs.

In a statement, the SEC said, “Two days after the incident, in consultation with the SEC's telecom carrier, the SEC determined that the unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent 'SIM swap' attack.”

The SEC had contacted X to disable the multi-factor authentication as it was causing issues while attempting to log in. If the security measure had been enabled on the account then the hackers would not have gained access to the SECGov account.

Speaking to TechRadar Pro, Dr Ilia Kolochenko, CEO and Chief Architect at ImmuniWeb and Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity and Cyber Law at Capital Technology University, commented: "It is another timely reminder that 2FA via SMS is susceptible to interception and shall be replaced by more robust 2FA mechanisms, for instance, OTP via mobile app.

"While the SEC’s X account hack is a minor security incident, all governmental agencies shall review the security of their social network accounts. A breach of the SEC account can possibly cause market volatility for a short period of time, however, a message on X by the US Department of Defense announcing war or a nuclear strike can trigger unpredictable and devastating consequences globally."

Via BleepingComputer

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If you regularly access X (formerly known as Twitter) via your iPhone or iPad, you may be sending unwanted personal data without your knowledge. That's the worrying finding of two iOS developers and security researchers.

Following a testing round, they observed that the X app for iOS keeps sharing crash reports with the popular social media provider even when users opt out of this option in the settings.

That's not the first time the duo unveiled security flaws linked to Apple devices and their applications. In 2022, they reported a data leak occurring when using VPN services on iOS 16. Let's look at what this new Apple privacy bug means for your privacy.

X for iOS privacy bug

"X for iOS has an option to disable sending crash reports. Well, it is useless. The app continues to send crash reports even if you opt out," tweeted developer and security researcher Tommy Mysk on January 15.

If you head to Settings on your X application, you can decide whether or not to send crash reports to the social media provider by turning on or off the toggle you find in the Additional Resources tab. That's on paper, at least.

A new video, which researchers uploaded on their official YouTube channel, clearly shows how the X app keeps sharing this data despite the Send crash reports button being off.

Replying to a worried comment about the same potential issues on the X app for desktop, the researchers said that the MacOS version hasn't been updated yet as it still comes with the platform's old name, Twitter.

So, what does all this mean for your online privacy?

As Apple describes in a blog post, crash reports give out details on "how your app terminated, and also contains the complete backtrace of each thread, which shows the code running at the time of the crash."

It might not sound so intrusive, after all. Yet, if you take the time to look for the X app on the Apple Store, you can see that the data linked to you (meaning the information that can be linked to your identity) also includes usage data and diagnostic details, among other things.

"In fact, this is the reason why we make sure we switch the option off. To our surprise, it turns out the setting is useless," said Mysk.

In addition to this, I would say, such a finding doesn't certainly assure all those users concerned about their mobile privacy who carefully review their settings every time they download a new app to minimize as much as possible their digital footprint. 

I contacted Apple about this privacy issue, but I'm still waiting for a comment at the time of writing. 

Following on from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) X (formerly Twitter) hack, US lawmakers are pushing for the SEC to review its cybersecurity practices after it was discovered there was no multi-factor authentication active at the time of the hack.

The hack resulted in a single tweet being released from the compromised account, stating that the SEC had approved exchange traded funds (ETF) for Bitcoin.

The tweet resulted in a jump in the price of Bitcoin up to $48,000 before dropping by 6% the tweet was confirmed as fake.

 “Failure to follow cybersecurity best practices”

US lawmakers are now demanding an investigation into the incident, stating this breach could be a sign of other security weaknesses within the SEC that could lead to far more damaging breaches.

The bipartisan letter, written by Democratic senator Ron Wyden and Republican senator Cynthia Lummis, requests the review as a result of the SEC’s failure to implement two-factor authentication on the account at the time of the hack. The account was compromised due to an individual acquiring a phone number related to the account, and as a result was able to log in to the agency’s account.

The letter urged the SEC, “to investigate the agency's practices related to the use of MFA, and in particular, phishing-resistant MFA, to identify any remaining security gaps that must be addressed.”

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has become a standard of online account security, with MFA providing an additional layer of security through the requirement of a one-time passcode, digital token, or biometric authentication in order to access an account.

Via Reuters

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The US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) has confirmed that its X account was compromised to send out unauthorized tweets. 

The agency is currently deliberating on whether to allow Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), but a tweet from its official X account suggested that it had now approved them.

A spokesperson from the SEC clarified to CoinDesk that its "@SECGov X/Twitter account has been compromised," adding that, "the unauthorized tweet regarding Bitcoin ETFs was not made by the SEC or its staff."

No 2FA

In a further statement, the SEC also said it "will work with law enforcement and our partners across government to investigate the matter and determine appropriate next steps relating to both the unauthorized access and any related misconduct."

SEC Chair Gary Gensler also issued a statement on his own X account, confirming, "the SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products."

Another spokesperson also told CoinDesk that decisions of this nature would not be announced via X, but rather on its official website and published in the Federal Register.

The safety team at X also tweeted explaining that there was no issue on its end; rather, an "unidentified individual" had managed to gain control of a phone number associated with the @SECGov account. 

It also added that the account had no two-factor authentication (2FA) in place at the time of the compromise, urging every user on its platform to "enable this extra layer of security." This usually involves receiving a code via text or an authenticator app on a device associated with the account in question, for the user to approve if a login attempt is made. 

It means that if hackers manage to obtain your username and password for one of your accounts, they will still not be able to gain access without the 2FA code to authenticate.

In response to the original fake tweet approving bitcoin ETFs, the cryptocurrency rose to $48,000, then swiftly dropped by 6% when the tweet was confirmed false. 

“This proves that accounts on X continue to be targeted and if an official account is compromised then serious consequences can follow. Cryptocurrency scams remain the focal point and with social pressure on X, they can still reap huge gains," Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET told TechRadar Pro.

"Legitimate third party access compromise or targeted social engineering are still the most common ways to obtain access to an account which leaves the security onus very much on individuals. Therefore, even more significance should be directed at training staff and account owners especially when dealing with high profile accounts.”

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New security research has uncovered that cybercriminals are abusing verification marks on X (formerly known as Twitter) by compromising passwords of verified accounts and either selling them on the dark web or using them for their own scams.

Malicious actors who purchase these verified accounts then have access to a wide number of people who are under the impression they are receiving content from the original owner.

However, the new account owner can post malicious phishing or financial scams that steal cryptocurrencies, personal information, and other valuable data.

Fools Gold

The research, conducted by CloudSEK, examined how verified accounts on X have been bought and sold on forums in the Dark Web and the significant financial disruption that has been caused by scams run on stolen accounts.

The research found that a fresh X account would sell for around $0.30, but accounts older than 5 years with a gold affiliation could sell for anywhere between $1200 - $2000. The prices also vary depending on the number of followers associated with the account, with one account with 28,000 followers being advertised for between $2000 - $2500.

Many of these accounts are compromised through brute forcing passwords, and as many of these accounts have often laid dormant for several years, it is unlikely that any password security or authentication methods have been implemented onto the accounts.

We all remember the chaos caused by the release of the original Twitter Blue subscription, which allowed users to subscribe for a small blue check mark next to their name, commonly associated with verified or trustworthy accounts. This led to the impersonations of celebrities including Elon Musk, and the impersonation of corporate entities.

To illustrate the dangers associated with these stolen accounts, CloudSEK drew attention to how the co-founder of Ethereum had their X account stolen in a cyberattack. Before they could re-secure their account, the hackers had posted a link to a fake website offering free non-fungible tokens (NFTs) which managed to steal $691,000 in cryptocurrency before it was taken down just 20 minutes later.

CloudSEK recommends that if you have an old X account that you do not use, close it down and ensure it is deleted, especially if it is a corporate account with a large following, as these are more likely to be targeted. Ensure that your accounts are employing the best password security practices.

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Mandiant, a Google-owned cybersecurity company, had its X account hijacked on January 3, and grappled to regain control of the social media account over several hours in a quite ironic incident.

An unknown scammer reportedly exploited the official Mandiant X account to spread a cryptocurrency-stealing link, designed to automatically drain crypto wallets.

Mandiant acknowledged the incident in a statement and announced efforts to regain control of the account, which was later done successfully.

Cybersecurity company faces cybersecurity blip

Initially posing as Phantom, a crypto and NFT wallet provider, the hacked account lured users to a scam website pretending to offer 250,000 eligible accounts an award of tokens.

Mandiant’s staff reportedly engaged in a back-and-forth struggle over several hours to remove scam posts, only for them to reappear.

The attacker also posted jovial threats on the account, targeted at the company’s social media team, including a meme with the comment “change password please” and another reading “check bookmarks when you get account back.”

Mandiant, known for helping clients to investigate and recover from significant network breaches, was acquired by Google in 2022 for $5.4 billion. The company’s reputation will undoubtedly take a hit from this short-lived but serious event.

Given the lack of a blue or gold checkmark, Google isn’t paying for any verification status on the Mandiant account like it does on some other Google accounts on X. It’s unclear how Mandiant’s social media workers regained control of the account, or whether subscribing to a paid account might have expedited the account recovery or prevented it altogether.

A Mandiant spokesperson told TechRadar Pro: "We are aware of the incident impacting the Mandiant X account. We've since regained control over the account and are currently working on restoring it."

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Social media site X has announced an 80% price reduction for its Verified Organizations subscription, bringing the monthly fee to $200, but only certain businesses will be eligible.

A new Basic tier has been added beneath the fully-fledged, $1,000-per-month Verified Organizations subscription, as the struggling social media platform looks to attract SMB customers.

The news was shared by the @Verified account on January 2, but updates to the platform’s Verified website are yet to occur.

X Verified Organizations Basic

The Musk-owned platform, now headed up by CEO Linda Yacarino, pushes its Verified Organizations subscription to organizations and enterprises for $1,000 per month. The fee includes verification with a golden tick (designed to distinguish businesses and individuals) and a secondary icon that’s shared across all affiliated accounts to confirm brand identity.

Additional accounts are added for $50 per month. Verified Organizations also provides defense against impersonation as well as X Premium features, like premium support.

It’s unclear whether Verified Organizations Basic will get access to all of the same features, including support for additional accounts. Eligibility criteria is also an unknown factor at this stage.

Responses in the comments have been pretty mixed – some SMBs are happy to see a much cheaper plan being introduced, while others continue to mock X for charging hundreds of dollars a month for little more than a checkmark. Still, a lot of naysayers were Premium subscribers themselves.

Four levels of personal accounts are available to individuals – the regular free version, Basic, Premium, and Premium+. The blue checkmark is available on Premium and higher, so will cost at least $8 per month or $84 annually.

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Scammers have found a way to trick people into thinking they’re visiting a legitimate company account on X when, in fact, they’re visiting an impersonator who will simply  steal their cryptocurrency.

This method leans onto the way X handles links to different posts. On the platform, when a person posts something, the link to it holds both the username and the post’s unique ID. However, it seems that only the ID is necessary to redirect the visitor to the actual post, so the username in the link can be changed to any name.

So, the hackers would first create an X account impersonating a major company, such as Binance, the Ethereum Foundation, or Chainlink, and post a link to a fake airdrop, a giveaway, or something similar. Then, they would change the username in the link to appear as if the actual Binance, or Chainlink, posted it. 

Bots in action

Then they would distribute it throughout X (and other platforms, probably) using bot accounts. Reporting on the news, BleepingComputer says all of the accounts it observed promoting these scam posts use an account name in the format of name+five digits, such as @amanda_car16095. 

While the campaign started roughly two weeks ago, the vulnerability (if it can be called that) is a lot older. The media reported on it back in 2019 when security researcher Davy Wybiral warned it could be abused in phishing attacks. However, it was never addressed, most likely because it was never used in phishing attacks. 

Defending against these scammers should be relatively easy - just double-check the account name in the post’s URL and make sure it’s legitimate. This becomes a bit of a problem if the victims use a Twitter app to read the posts, as the app will not display the URL. Using common sense is advised - large companies like Binance will rarely promote giveaways and airdrops via Twitter bots. 

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Can you feel that? It's the anticipation building for Tesla's big Cybertruck delivery event, which is set to be held at the firm's Gigafactory in Texas tomorrow. A few lucky shareholders will be there in person, as Elon Musk hands over the keys to a number of Cybertruck customers – although rumors speculate it might be as few as 10 new owners.

It has been four years since Tesla's electric pick-up was first announced and since then, we’ve had to cling on to drip-fed morsels of information surrounding its spec, range, performance and price details. In fact, it’s a still a bit of a mystery now.

So much so, that new and previously unannounced features are still being surfaced via Musk’s social network, X. It was here that some eagle-eyed Cybertruck fan (or carefully placed muse, whatever your view is on social media marketing) spotted a unique start-up routine that has previously gone unnoticed. We’re not sure how, considering smartphone videographers and Tesla hype-merchants have had four years to spot it.

In the clip, which first surfaced on TweakTown, we see a fancy LED light-up sequence occur at the front, where the enormous width LED lighting signature does a fancy strobing dance as the owner unlocks the vehicle. What’s more, the suspension lifts from a lower ride height (making it easier for the occupant to get in) to a – presumably – standard or medium road-going height once the doors are closed and the vehicle is ready to be driven away.

The speed at which the suspension lifts appears to confirm rumors that the Cybertruck will pack an air suspension system that allows the driver to select different heights depending on the terrain. Unfortunately, there's been no confirmation of the various measurements or increments available from said suspension system, while it certainly doesn’t look as fast, smart or reactive as Porsche’s recently announced hydraulic system found in the upcoming Panamera.

However, some commentators on X, formerly Twitter, were quick to point out that the 'regular' drive-away height looks pretty tall, which could lead to a very roly-poly driving experience through corners. But that's unsubstantiated, as the owner could have easily selected the highest suspension setting for the camera.

Analysis: We've seen it all before

As a writer that has been covering the automotive world for almost 20 years, it’s difficult to be enthused by some strobing LED front lights and some basic air suspension. Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Land Rover and numerous EVs have already covered that ground. Just look at the Merc EQS – it's basically a mobile disco when it comes to fancy LED illumination.

In addition to this, Chinese EV brand HiPhi arguably takes the crown for most madcap lighting in its Z model, which features a light strip that runs around the entire car and programmable Matrix Lighting at the front and rear that can display emojis. Sad face, Tesla.

The fact of the matter is, we’ve seen it all before, especially seeing as adjustable air suspension is pretty much an essential feature on any vehicle that claims to be able to venture off-road these days. 

With other leaked 'highlights' including external power outlets in the Cybertruck's mediocre-sized bed and the fact that it's likely to come in a powerful three-motor version, the upcoming delivery event could be a damp squib. 

Let's just hope that Musk announces that the Cybertruck comes with rocket thrusters, or maybe that more than 10 customers will be handed their keys, so we genuinely have something to celebrate.

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Every once in a while, X (formerly Twitter) CTO Elon Musk realizes he's made a rash or simply bad decision and reverses himself. Oh, wait. That virtually never happens. Even today's announcement that X is bringing back article headlines is a half-reversal, at best.

In August, X made the head-scratching decision to strip article headlines out of tweets. It was a small, annoying change that ultimately turned one of X's key features, its usefulness as a source for breaking news, into a hunt for stories about breaking news. Following the change, article tweets looked like out-of-context images. Tweet text doesn't link to anything, and if you want to read a story, you have to know to click on the image.

It's no secret that the frustration factor of using X has been growing ever since Elon Musk took the reins more than a year ago. He's done a lot, like stripping verifications from millions of users and making sure only those willing to pay a subscription fee get them (unless you have over a million followers or are an official body). He apparently,rejiggered the algorithm to promote paying customers, and then he changed the name of the platform; that last act tanked 17 years of brand equity.

Put in that context, this most recent change is small potatoes. Still, there is now some light at the end of the Twitter tunnel ('X tunnel' doesn't have the same ring to it). Musk tweeted late on Wednesday that, "In an upcoming release, 𝕏 will overlay title in the upper potion[sic] of the image of a URL card."

A half measure

Now, this is not a true fix. We're still not getting linked URLs in tweets. Instead, the links will appear in some fashion on the images (also known as 'cards'). The size of the links, color, what 'upper portion' means, and how X will make the links stand out on busy backgrounds are unclear.

On the other hand, this small change should make X almost as scannable and usable as it once was. It might be a bit clearer that the image is not just a random tweet but is a portal to an important story.

Why Musk made this change is unclear. Maybe it's an olive branch to all those upset over his apparent support for antisemitic Tweets, or how the site may have put ads from major brands next to similar, abhorrent tweets. Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino have made it clear they do not support that rhetoric, and that the reports are twisting the data. They've even sued.

Whatever the truth, Musk appears to have grown slightly more self-reflective in recent days, and maybe he's taking a fresh look at some recent decisions to see if he can try to make X as appealing as it once was in its Twitter days.

It's doubtful, but he can try.

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You can’t spell “crypto” without “cry”, which is something Bloomberg learned well after its official crypto Twitter account was hijacked and used to launch phishing attacks against its users.

The attackers somehow managed to gain access to the Bloomberg Crypto Twitter account and updated it by adding a link to the @BloombergNewsCrypto Telegram channel. 

While this channel was a legitimate Bloomberg Crypto channel at one point, it was abandoned last summer for the @BloombergCrypto channel. Unfortunately, it was left active (with some 14,000 members, apparently), which the hackers used to gain even more legitimacy among the victims.

Stealing login data

From there, the attackers redirected users to a Discord channel (Discord is a widely popular platform in the crypto community) in an attempt to steal their Discord tokens:

"If you are interested, please head over to, our official and only discord server for more information on how to start an application: https://discord[.]gg/bloomberg," the scammers said on Telegram. This Discord channel had almost 34,000 users at press time. "Join the Bloomberg Crypto Discord Server! Check out the Bloomberg Crypto community on Discord - hang out with 33975 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat."

Users looking to join would be prompted to use something resembling AltDentifier, an authentic Discord Verification Bot. Instead of the legitimate link (https://altdentifier.com/) users would get redirected to altdentifiers[.]com, where they would be asked to verify with Discord, a process that essentially steals their login data. 

Victims have 30 minutes to complete the process.

"The server administrators have implemented additional security measures on this server, which include the requirement for all accounts to verify their Discord account," the phishing site says."Once your account is successfully verified, you will be able to freely participate in the server. Please note that administrators have the authority to override the system if necessary."

The scam was first spotted by crypto fraud investigator ZachXBT, with Bloomberg putting a stop to the scheme less than an hour after ZachXBT sounded the alarm.

Via BleepingComputer

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Experts have lifted the lid on an ongoing X campaign designed to take money via phishing campaigns by impersonating legitimate investigators and companies researching cryptocurrency and blockchain security.

Like any other phishing campaign, the threat actors use a sense of urgency to pressure victims into sharing personal information, ultimately handing over their money.

Revealed by Bleeping Computer, the scale of the campaign was only made greater by the fact that illegitimate posts on the platform were being shared by legitimate accounts, putting them into the hands of thousands.

X phishing campaigns

The not-so-sophisticated campaign sees threat actors set up fake accounts with similar names to existing, trusted accounts, such as @zachxbt (legitimate) and @zacheryxbt (used for the phishing attack).

vx-underground, which has nearly 250,000 followers on X, shared a post from the malicious account before later deleting it and sharing:

“Someone in our internal circle sent us the information about the alleged breach from a fake ZachXBT… Admittedly, because we know this person well, we didn’t double check anything.”

The malicious posts claim to expose a vulnerability in Uniswap, a decentralized crypto exchange, however Hayden Adams, a developer for the platform’s web application interface, has already confirmed that there is no such exploit in the wild.

The publication also claims that bot accounts have been promoting the #UniswapExploit hashtag to the point that they were trending across the US. X’s Elon Musk has previously spoken out about bots on the platform, suggesting that a nominal monthly charge to use the platform could help to eliminate bot accounts, simply because they would each need their own bank details.

X’s subscriptions now include Basic, Premium, and Premium+, but they are not mandatory, and free accounts (including bot accounts) can continue to operate.

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