X’s plan to boost revenue by selling off dormant usernames on its service is starting to shape up. According to recent changes found in X’s web application, the company is setting up a “handle inquiry” process that will allow Verified Organizations — companies and other organizations that already have a $1,000 per month X subscription — to bid on abandoned X handles. Those bids will start at $10,000 and may range to over $500,000, according to an FAQ discovered in the web app.
The updates were first spotted by reverse engineer Nima Owji, who told TechCrunch that he saw the changes to the web app go live on Wednesday. The website where organizations could acquire a handle is not yet live to the public, however.
The idea of making money by selling handles is something X floated before under Elon Musk’s ownership. The New York Times reported in January 2023 that the company, then still called Twitter, was considering setting up an online auction process for bidding on handles.
Musk has also long supported the idea of freeing up X’s namespace for active users, having already purged a number of inactive accounts on the service back in May 2023.
In November 2023, Forbes also reported that X was actively soliciting buyers who may be interested in acquiring unused handles, but a formal announcement was not made. X’s documentation on inactive accounts states that the company “cannot release inactive usernames at this time,” though there have been some reports of people buying usernames on X outside of an official process.
By allowing companies to officially buy their desired usernames, X could generate another revenue stream outside of subscriptions, ads, and developer access. The move could also encourage other X users to keep posting if they don’t want their handle to become dormant and then go up for sale.
So far, the FAQ details the answers to a handful of common questions X users may have about the process, including how to start a handle inquiry, what the sales process is like, and how the transfer will work.
As the still-nonpublic website explains, interested users will work with an automated support bot to start an inquiry about a username they want to purchase, and X will respond if the handle is available within three business days. After the handle is purchased, it will be transferred to the new owner within one or two days, or it can be moved to another account the business already owns, the FAQ states.
Discounts may also be available for those purchasing multiple handles at once, depending on the number and size of the quote, the website notes.
X was asked for comment on its plans around handles but did not respond.
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When OpenAI debuted its image-generation feature in ChatGPT last week, social media exploded when users realized that they could make AI-generated images that looked like something out of an animated film from Studio Ghibli. Fans hoped that Studio Ghibli mastermind Hayao Miyazaki would take a stand, but the 84-year-old animator has remained silent. In the Ghibli fan subreddit, however, fans are enforcing a long-standing ban against AI art.
“I just noticed about a dozen different ‘BAN AI NOW’ posts here seemingly spurred on by an influx of AI Ghibli art on other sites,” a moderator posted to the Ghibli subreddit last week. “We don’t allow AI art. We haven’t allowed it basically since it became a thing.”
These fans don’t see the AI-generated copies as an homage to the iconic artist. Rather, these generative AI models are trained on copyrighted images from artists like Miyazaki, who never gave OpenAI or any of its competitors permission to use their work as such.
This issue is one that’s impacted other creators and writers, too. The New York Times and other publishers have sued OpenAI, alleging that the company used its copyrighted materials to train its models without payment or consent. Similar complaints have been filed against Meta and Midjourney.
The Ghibli situation struck a particularly strong nerve among fans since the studio’s mastermind, Hayao Miyazaki, has been vocal about his hatred for AI-generated artwork.
“I can’t watch this stuff and find it interesting,” Miyazaki said in documentary footage from 2016 in which he was shown AI-generated 3D animation. “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever. I am utterly disgusted.”
People have also generated portraits in the style of Pixar movies and Dr. Seuss illustrations. Even the White House’s X account posted a Ghibli-style image, crudely mocking a woman for crying while being handcuffed by ICE.
As more “Ghiblified” images spread across the internet, fans of the legendary 84-year-old animator resurfaced his commentary to discourage others from imitating his work, but the damage had already been done. Of course, not all of these are Ghibli-style images, but the popularity of these images has stretched the AI company’s capacity.
OpenAI’s Brad Lightcap, who oversees day-to-day operations at the company, said that over 130 million users have generated more than 700 million images with this new ChatGPT feature.
“The range of visual creativity has been extremely inspiring,” Lightcap wrote.
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As YouTube Shorts continues to compete with TikTok, the platform is announcing new upcoming features to help creators publish engaging short-form videos.
Creators will get access to an improved video editor, the ability to generate AI stickers, a feature that syncs content to the beat of a song, enhanced templates, and more.
The launch of the new tools comes just days before the April 5 TikTok ban deadline. Given the timing of the announcement, YouTube is likely looking to court creators to its platform and capitalize on the potential void left by TikTok if it faces a ban in the United States.
YouTube says the new and improved video editor will allow users to easily adjust the timing of each clip, move or remove clips to create a rough version, add music or timed text, and preview their Short to make sure it tells the story the way they want it to. YouTube plans to roll out additional editing updates in the future.
The company notes that an improved video editor has been a top request from Shorts creators.
TikTok is known for having robust editing tools, so it makes sense for YouTube to give its creators access to more of the same tools. Plus, the launch of the improved video editor is significant, as Meta is said to be weeks away from releasing an “Edits” app that is said to rival ByteDance’s CapCut.
As for the new AI Stickers, creators will be able to generate custom stickers using a simple text prompt. In an example shared by YouTube, a user can generate an AI sticker of “a strong plant with muscles.”
YouTube Shorts will also roll out the ability for creators to add image stickers to their videos. For example, creators will be able to share different options for outfit inspiration by uploading photos from their camera roll and turning them into image stickers.
In addition, creators will soon be able to pick a song and have their clips automatically aligned with the music’s rhythm. Before this, creators would have had to manually sync clips to songs.
The feature appears to be similar to CapCut’s “Beats” tool, which automatically syncs music to clips.
YouTube is also going to improve templates, as users will be able to pull photos from their gallery and use them in templates. The company also plans to add effects within templates. Given the popularity of effects on TikTok, it makes sense for YouTube Shorts to explore them as well, especially since they can sometimes create trends.
The new features are expected to roll out in the coming months.
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Starting Wednesday, Meta says it will begin combining the Instagram accounts of the Second Lady of the United States, Usha Vance, and the former Second Gentleman of the United States, Doug Emhoff.
As a result, the 1.2 million people who were previously following the Instagram account of Kamala Harris’s husband, @secondgentleman46archive (recently archived by the government), will now be following J.D. Vance’s wife on her newly created account, @SLOTUS. As of the time of writing, her account has less than 66,000 followers.
“Following the White House creating an account for the Second Lady, we are transitioning the Second Gentleman account to @SLOTUS,” said a Meta spokesperson in a statement to TechCrunch. “This is consistent with our process for presidential transitions and with the process we followed for the President, VP, FLOTUS, and The White House accounts earlier this year.”
When Trump took office in January, a lot of users were confused as to why they were suddenly following President Trump on Facebook and Instagram when they hadn’t explicitly requested to do so. At the time, Meta explained this was part of a regular process in which White House social media accounts, including their followers, are handed over to the new administration when a new President takes office.
Usha Vance is obtaining the former Second Gentleman’s Instagram followers now because the White House only recently created her @SLOTUS account, according to Meta. The first post on the Second Lady’s Instagram account is dated March 10th, and Meta says she does not have an official Facebook account at this time.
Be aware that if you try to unfollow @SLOTUS on Instagram, your request may not immediately go through.
Meta says it may “take some time” to process follow and unfollow requests around the @SLOTUS account during this transition. It seems likely that users flood Meta with a barrage of follow and unfollow requests in these account transitions, which slows things down.
Meta insists it never forces users to “auto-follow” accounts without a user’s consent. In this case, Meta says the White House itself controls these official accounts, and it’s simply assisting them in the Presidential transition.
While these White House social media accounts change hands every four years, they tend to create widespread confusion every time. Many users forget they ever followed an official White House account in the first place, especially if they had done so four years ago when the previous administration took office.
However, it becomes much more evident which White House accounts you’re following when the new administration, which may not be the party you voted for, takes over.
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Amazon has submitted a bid to acquire all of TikTok, according to a new report from The New York Times. The last-minute bid comes as TikTok faces an April 5 deadline to shed its Chinese ownership or face a ban in the U.S. However, the parties involved in the deal talks do not appear to be taking Amazon’s bid seriously, according to The Times’ report.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with officials to discuss the app’s fate on Wednesday. Trump said earlier this week that a deal with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to sell the app will be finalized before the April 5 deadline.
On Tuesday, Financial Times reported that Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in TikTok as part of an Oracle-led bid that includes other American investors interested in purchasing the app.
Last week, Reuters reported that private equity firm Blackstone is considering joining ByteDance’s current non-Chinese shareholders, led by Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, in providing fresh capital to bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations.
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The fediverse, also known as the open social web that includes Mastodon, Meta’s Threads, Pixelfed, and other apps, is ramping up its security. On Wednesday, a nonprofit focused on bringing governance to open source projects, the Nivenly Foundation, announced the launch of a new security fund that will pay those who responsibly disclose security vulnerabilities that affect fediverse apps and services.
While all software can have security issues, Mastodon — an open source and decentralized alternative to X — has fixed numerous bugs over the years, leading to the need for such a program. Another issue found in the fediverse is that many servers are run by independent operators who don’t necessarily have a security background or understand best practices.
Already, the Nivenly Foundation has helped a few fediverse projects set up their basic security vulnerability reporting process, and now it’s looking to distribute small payouts to anyone who responsibly discloses other security vulnerabilities that may still be in the wild.
The payouts will total $250 for vulnerabilities with a vulnerability severity score (known as CVSS) of 7.0-8.9 and $500 for more critical vulnerabilities with a CVSS score of 9.0 or greater. The funds for the payouts come from the foundation, which is supported directly by members that includes individuals as well as other trade organizations.
The vulnerabilities themselves are validated by acceptance from the fediverse project leads as well as public records in vulnerability disclosure (CVE) databases.
The fund is currently in a limited trial after the discovery of a security vulnerability in the decentralized Instagram alternative, Pixelfed. Open source contributor Emelia Smith came across the issue, and the Nivenly Foundation paid her to fix it, she explains.
A more recent issue came about when Pixelfed’s creator, Daniel Supernault made the details of a vulnerability public before server operators had a chance to update, which would have left the fediverse vulnerable to bad actors, she says. (Supernault has already apologized publicly for his handling of the issue that had affected private accounts.)
“Part of the program is…education for project leads, helping them understand why responsible disclosure practices for security vulnerabilities are important,” Smith told TechCrunch. “We came across several projects that just said ‘file security vulnerabilities in our public issue tracker,’ which absolutely isn’t safe, as any malicious actor watching that repository would now be able to attack instances of that software,” she added.
Typically, the common practice is to disclose minimal information about a vulnerability, giving server operators time to upgrade, Smith said. However, this requires that project leads understand security best practices.
In the case of the Pixelfed issue, for instance, the Hachyderm Mastodon server, which has over 9,500 members, decided it needed to defederate (or disconnect from) other Pixelfed servers that hadn’t been updated in order to protect their users.
With this new program designed to follow best practices around the disclosure of vulnerabilities, the need to defederate to protect users may become less common.
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