Operation Bluebird, the Virginia-based startup trying to revive the allegedly abandoned “Twitter” name and logo, announced Monday that it has launched its new social media network: Twitter.now.
“We are a small company, we have investors, and we have a product,” Stephen Coates, one of Operation Bluebird’s cofounders, told Ars. “And we have waited months and months to launch, and we are not going to wait anymore.”
As Ars reported in December 2025, Coates and his coterie believe that when Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 and quickly changed the company’s name to X, the Twitter identity and intellectual property were abandoned.
However, in an April 2026 hearing, US District Court Judge Colm Connolly gave a tentative ruling from the bench that X seemed to have given up intellectual property claims over the word “tweet” and the Twitter bird logo—and possibly even on the word “Twitter” as well. The judge has yet to issue a written order.
“It’s our opinion that X has abandoned its rights on the Twitter and tweet trademarks,” he said.
Based on my cursory research as somebody with only a vague knowledge of the legal system:
The US operates as a "use it or lose it" system, and any trademarks are presumed abandoned after 3 years of non-use. Trademark owners must present a good explanation of non-use to have it ruled as not abandoned (of which there are many; bankruptcy proceeding, financial difficulty, the need for product revisions).
The "new" twitter seems to think that X will have no credible explanation for non-use that doesn't imply an intent to abandon. And all they actually had to do was start using the name, and it will be up to X to prove that it wasn't abandoned.
I do think ultimately that X will win, simply due to blatant corruption of its owner and how imbedded he is with the current government.
There is a tiny US air taxi company Hopscotch Air, which some time ago made a deal with Swiss Airlines to brand their planes with "SWISSAIR" branding, which was the name of the former flag carrier airline of Switzerland that went bankrupt in 2002. A regional Swiss airline called Crossair took over most of the routes of Swissair, and renamed itself to Swiss Airlines, and became Switzerland's new flag carrier. Later they were able to acquire the rights to the Swissair name from the bankrupt company as well, basically to stop any competitor from spinning up a new Swissair to compete with Swiss Airlines. However in order to avoid the risk of losing the rights to the name due to abandonment and non-use, they made this license deal with a small US company, where the name would continue to be used in aviation, thus preserving the rights, yet kind of out of sight, in a way that is basically invisible to any Swiss Airlines customer, so it won't cause any confusion with their main business.
basically to stop any competitor from spinning up a new Swissair to compete with Swiss Airlines.
I was a child at the time but losing the flag carrier was kind of a big deal at the time (it certainly headlines, and they made a documentary movie afterwards) and I don't think the general public was that Swissair was in trouble. And so I think the reason for this arrangement was more a subject of national pride than marketing strategy (the new airline was partly owned by the government).
(the grounding of the airline happened in October 2001, so it also serves as a pre/post 9/11 marker)
I think the Swissair 111 crash hurt their business a lot - I used to fly from the US to Vienna frequently in the late 90s, and ended up flying Swissair several times in 99-00 as they were forced to slash prices to stop the loss of customers, in an already very competitive market with dropping profits at the time. Then 9/11 happened, and the entire industry took a massive hit, with Swissair already on the ropes with no chance to withstand it.
I do miss connecting at the old Zurich airport - it was so small and convenient, the connection to Vienna was right in the same terminal, no security or anything (before Switzerland joined Schengen). Still have several Wenger Swiss Army pocket knives I bought during the layovers there (another company that no longer exists, also a victim of 9/11 as pocket knives were banned from airplanes and airports)
Reviving old defunct airline names was also a thing, especially during that time. I also used to fly on Pan-Am (II) back then, which was the first attempt to resurrect the Pan-Am brand in the 90s. Pan-Am used to be the biggest airline in the world of course, eventually went bankrupt in 1991, with its remains purchased by Delta. But the name was sold separately a few times.. there have been 5 attempts to bring back some type of airline with that name so far, all completely unrelated to the original, other than through having purchased the name rights.
There are other examples like Frontier, which was an old bankrupt airline, with name later resurrected for a new budget airline which is still operating. Other once big names like Braniff or Eastern were brought back multiple times over the years as well. So Swiss definitely has a reason to protect the old historic Swissair brand and stopping it from falling into the wrong hands.
Trademarks have to be actively used and maintained. If Kleenex stoped branding as Kleenex, other companies could come in pretty quickly and use that name.
Copyright lasts basically forever thanks to Disney.
Patents last a limited time and expire.
Many things are covered by multiple forms of these intellectual property laws. For example the recipe for Coke is not patented. If you figured it out, you could sell your own coke today. But the name Coke is a trademark, so you cannot sell your coke with the Coke branding, unless Coke abandoned it.
Twitter.now fails initial trustworthiness checks for me.
Their "legal" address is a UPS Store location. (3057 Nutley Street #801, Fairfax, VA 22031 per https://www.twitter.new/privacy)
They push you down paid paths to get "early access."
No information about the team/company is provided.
It has hallmarks of an AI-generated website. (Various -- if you've asked Claude to build you a site, you probably can see the similarities -- but to back it with something empirical, the hero text copy/pasted into GPTZero.me says it is 100% AI.)
No information about the team or organization.
On the Stripe donation page, I can't find any specific information such as even a tax ID for where the money is going to go.
According to articles by Forbes and The Verge, the guy behind this is a trademark attorney, Michael Peroff.
Apparently this is affiliated with twitter.new, which has a little more information and looks a little less AI, but it's still a bit scant.
That said, the idea of a Twitter with a "trust dial" where you can dial down or up "trustworthy" content is intriguing, but they provide very little detail about how they would score "trust," and the devil is in the details. Based on what I'm seeing, I suspect they plan to just "ask ChatGPT," and that might even be a good 80% solution, but I kind of hate it, too.
I've seen this claim a lot on various websites recently, and the overlaps seem small to me. It's starting to feel a lot like New York accents; many New Yorkers claims the boroughs have different accents. But when quizzed, many fail miserably.
Even if such "hallmarks" exist, wouldn't the reliable detection make it undesirable and immediately changes the meta?
I dont think the overlap is small, theres a very distinct look to vibecoded websites which sticks out immediately if you recognize it.
wouldn't the reliable detection make it undesirable and immediately changes the meta?
Change the meta for whom? Those hallmarks are an artefact of the training data. The AI companies have no reason to specifically finetune their models to change how they design websites, and most users simply don't care. Just how an overuse of random bold font, "it's not just X", "load-bearing" and stuff like that is usually a pretty obvious sign of LLM writing, and yet it still exists and people using the LLMs often don't bother changing the style.
Besides, this website just feels like it was every "flat" website I designed from 2013-2016, specifically a flat design with some box shadows on the buttons using Twitters OG opensourced bootstrap theme.
I think these guys are just out to make a quick buck and just using this to get publicity. But if it’s a thorn in that stupid dipshit’s side, I’ll take it.
Seems silly to fight for the name but abandon a logo that iconic. Maybe there's legal differences in trademark law that I don't understand? But if one is considered abandoned, shouldn't the other be abandoned as well?
an_angry_tiger | a day ago
If anyone else is like me and wondering how they got the rights to use "twitter" (or if they bought it), well,
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/new-twitter-launches-says-musks-x-gave-up-the-name/
mild_takes | a day ago
Thats pretty ballsy. I'm interested in seeing how it goes when X steps up to say nuh-uh.
Also I thought trademarks could stay valid long after they stopped being used? I have very little understanding about that world though.
derekiscool | a day ago
Based on my cursory research as somebody with only a vague knowledge of the legal system:
The US operates as a "use it or lose it" system, and any trademarks are presumed abandoned after 3 years of non-use. Trademark owners must present a good explanation of non-use to have it ruled as not abandoned (of which there are many; bankruptcy proceeding, financial difficulty, the need for product revisions).
The "new" twitter seems to think that X will have no credible explanation for non-use that doesn't imply an intent to abandon. And all they actually had to do was start using the name, and it will be up to X to prove that it wasn't abandoned.
I do think ultimately that X will win, simply due to blatant corruption of its owner and how imbedded he is with the current government.
Nemoder | 23 hours ago
I would think the twitter.com ownership and redirection to x.com would suffice.
For the name at least, maybe not the logo?
ylph | 23 hours ago
There is a tiny US air taxi company Hopscotch Air, which some time ago made a deal with Swiss Airlines to brand their planes with "SWISSAIR" branding, which was the name of the former flag carrier airline of Switzerland that went bankrupt in 2002. A regional Swiss airline called Crossair took over most of the routes of Swissair, and renamed itself to Swiss Airlines, and became Switzerland's new flag carrier. Later they were able to acquire the rights to the Swissair name from the bankrupt company as well, basically to stop any competitor from spinning up a new Swissair to compete with Swiss Airlines. However in order to avoid the risk of losing the rights to the name due to abandonment and non-use, they made this license deal with a small US company, where the name would continue to be used in aviation, thus preserving the rights, yet kind of out of sight, in a way that is basically invisible to any Swiss Airlines customer, so it won't cause any confusion with their main business.
PetitPrince | 18 hours ago
I was a child at the time but losing the flag carrier was kind of a big deal at the time (it certainly headlines, and they made a documentary movie afterwards) and I don't think the general public was that Swissair was in trouble. And so I think the reason for this arrangement was more a subject of national pride than marketing strategy (the new airline was partly owned by the government).
(the grounding of the airline happened in October 2001, so it also serves as a pre/post 9/11 marker)
ylph | 13 hours ago
I think the Swissair 111 crash hurt their business a lot - I used to fly from the US to Vienna frequently in the late 90s, and ended up flying Swissair several times in 99-00 as they were forced to slash prices to stop the loss of customers, in an already very competitive market with dropping profits at the time. Then 9/11 happened, and the entire industry took a massive hit, with Swissair already on the ropes with no chance to withstand it.
I do miss connecting at the old Zurich airport - it was so small and convenient, the connection to Vienna was right in the same terminal, no security or anything (before Switzerland joined Schengen). Still have several Wenger Swiss Army pocket knives I bought during the layovers there (another company that no longer exists, also a victim of 9/11 as pocket knives were banned from airplanes and airports)
Reviving old defunct airline names was also a thing, especially during that time. I also used to fly on Pan-Am (II) back then, which was the first attempt to resurrect the Pan-Am brand in the 90s. Pan-Am used to be the biggest airline in the world of course, eventually went bankrupt in 1991, with its remains purchased by Delta. But the name was sold separately a few times.. there have been 5 attempts to bring back some type of airline with that name so far, all completely unrelated to the original, other than through having purchased the name rights.
There are other examples like Frontier, which was an old bankrupt airline, with name later resurrected for a new budget airline which is still operating. Other once big names like Braniff or Eastern were brought back multiple times over the years as well. So Swiss definitely has a reason to protect the old historic Swissair brand and stopping it from falling into the wrong hands.
thecakeisalime | 9 hours ago
Similarly, there's a bunch of Standard gas stations, which are identical to Chevron gas stations other than the name, and this is simply to keep the trademark alive.
Weldawadyathink | a day ago
Trademarks have to be actively used and maintained. If Kleenex stoped branding as Kleenex, other companies could come in pretty quickly and use that name.
Copyright lasts basically forever thanks to Disney.
Patents last a limited time and expire.
Many things are covered by multiple forms of these intellectual property laws. For example the recipe for Coke is not patented. If you figured it out, you could sell your own coke today. But the name Coke is a trademark, so you cannot sell your coke with the Coke branding, unless Coke abandoned it.
tobyt | a day ago
Twitter.now fails initial trustworthiness checks for me.
Their "legal" address is a UPS Store location. (3057 Nutley Street #801, Fairfax, VA 22031 per https://www.twitter.new/privacy)
They push you down paid paths to get "early access."
No information about the team/company is provided.
It has hallmarks of an AI-generated website. (Various -- if you've asked Claude to build you a site, you probably can see the similarities -- but to back it with something empirical, the hero text copy/pasted into GPTZero.me says it is 100% AI.)
No information about the team or organization.
On the Stripe donation page, I can't find any specific information such as even a tax ID for where the money is going to go.
According to articles by Forbes and The Verge, the guy behind this is a trademark attorney, Michael Peroff.
Apparently this is affiliated with twitter.new, which has a little more information and looks a little less AI, but it's still a bit scant.
That said, the idea of a Twitter with a "trust dial" where you can dial down or up "trustworthy" content is intriguing, but they provide very little detail about how they would score "trust," and the devil is in the details. Based on what I'm seeing, I suspect they plan to just "ask ChatGPT," and that might even be a good 80% solution, but I kind of hate it, too.
moonwalker | 20 hours ago
I've seen this claim a lot on various websites recently, and the overlaps seem small to me. It's starting to feel a lot like New York accents; many New Yorkers claims the boroughs have different accents. But when quizzed, many fail miserably.
Even if such "hallmarks" exist, wouldn't the reliable detection make it undesirable and immediately changes the meta?
fxgn | 18 hours ago
The favorite design feature of every AI is
See here for a few other examples.
I dont think the overlap is small, theres a very distinct look to vibecoded websites which sticks out immediately if you recognize it.
Change the meta for whom? Those hallmarks are an artefact of the training data. The AI companies have no reason to specifically finetune their models to change how they design websites, and most users simply don't care. Just how an overuse of random bold font, "it's not just X", "load-bearing" and stuff like that is usually a pretty obvious sign of LLM writing, and yet it still exists and people using the LLMs often don't bother changing the style.
Kremor | 14 hours ago
There are a couple more things that I see a lot but people rarely mention:
01).macleod | 12 hours ago
Besides, this website just feels like it was every "flat" website I designed from 2013-2016, specifically a flat design with some box shadows on the buttons using Twitters OG opensourced bootstrap theme.
post_below | 10 hours ago
Not just the design, all of the copy, it's so AI generated it hurts.
And this idea of it being a righteous "fight" that you can pay to join is just silly.
MimicSquid | a day ago
No statement about any of the rest of it, but being able to say "We're Twitter Now." and having it be a proper sentence is very good.
JXM | a day ago
I think these guys are just out to make a quick buck and just using this to get publicity. But if it’s a thorn in that stupid dipshit’s side, I’ll take it.
ShinRamyun | a day ago
It's just completely vibe coded slop lmao. I don't care about using AI tools but damn, try a bit harder.
sunset | 17 hours ago
Why the counterfeit-looking logo then?
Seems silly to fight for the name but abandon a logo that iconic. Maybe there's legal differences in trademark law that I don't understand? But if one is considered abandoned, shouldn't the other be abandoned as well?
macleod | 12 hours ago
I believe it's supposed to signify a phoenix, but ended up looking like a chocobo.