The Blue Bird Returns: Former Twitter Lawyer Launches Twitter.now

Twitter is making a surprising comeback, as a former Twitter lawyer launches a new social platform called Twitter.now. Stephen Coates, who was Twitter’s first trademark counsel and held senior legal roles at the company, is behind the startup that launched the platform in late August. Currently in early testing, Twitter.now aims to rethink social media moderation rather than simply recreating Twitter.

The timing of the launch is strategic. When Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he changed the company’s name and branding to X, retiring the blue bird and much of the original vocabulary. Operation Bluebird, the startup behind Twitter.now, argues that in abandoning the Twitter identity, X also gave up trademark rights associated with names like “Twitter” and “tweet.” This argument is currently being tested in court, with Operation Bluebird filing a petition to cancel X’s Twitter and tweet trademarks.

For Coates, the fight goes beyond bringing back a familiar logo. The platform’s Trust score feature is designed to give users control over their content feed by assigning a trust score to posts, allowing them to determine how much potentially misleading or harmful content they see. This approach, according to Coates, emphasizes freedom of reach, as users can still post lawful content even if an algorithm doesn’t distribute it widely.

The revival of the Twitter name is crucial to the startup's strategy, as they believe the original brand still carries cultural weight that could attract users. However, the legal battle over the identity is ongoing, with a judge having yet to make a final ruling on X's ownership of certain Twitter-related marks, including the blue bird logo and "tweet." Should the startup succeed legally, Twitter.now could offer a fresh take on social media moderation, putting the power back into users' hands.