Timeline of changes in Twitter features under Elon Musk that left users dazed

There's no denying of the fact that Tesla CEO Elon Musk always stays in the headlines, be it for his cryptic jokes, thought-provoking posts, unusual announcements, or sometimes controversies. The 52-year-old billionaire, who recently stepped down from Twitter's CEO position, has often drawn attention for numerous changes he brought into the microblogging platform after the acquisition was completed in October 2022.

Be it charging money for blue ticks or reinitiating banned accounts in the name of free speech, Twitter has seen it all. The social media platform under Musk's ownership has been on a perfect rollercoaster ride, leading it through various ups and downs.

Here’s a look at all the changes Musk implemented in Twitter features ever since he acquired the platform last year:

Temporary limit on reading tweets

Elon Musk on July 1 announced that non-verified users can only read up to 600 tweets per day while those with verified accounts can read up to 6,000 posts daily. The reading limit for newly-unverified accounts has been set at 300 tweets. This was the latest in the series of changes that Elon Musk implemented under his leadership. Twitter claimed that the temporary limit on reading tweets has been implemented to remove spams and bots from the platform.

Paid blue ticks

Musk's decision to offer blue ticks for just $8 and $11 completely ended the celebrity culture on Twitter. Earlier, only prominent personalities, journalists, and organisations carried that blue badge beside their names on Twitter. However, Musk's decision to sell that verification tick has made everyone equal on the microblogging platforms, as anyone can now buy it.

Keeping track of activities

In December last year, Twitter 2.0 started tracking the number of likes, retweets, and quotes by showing how many views the tweets were receiving. This feature never existed before Musk's takeover.

From 'Home' to 'For You'

The old timeline of Twitter that had "Home," which fed users tweets from people or topics, was replaced with the "For You" timeline as the default, which showed algorithmically-chosen tweets.

Replacement of the blue bird with a dog logo

In April 2023, the blue bird logo that was the key symbol of Twitter was replaced overnight with a Shiba Inu, the dog logo. The bird, however, was reinstated a couple of days later.

Removal of legacy blue marks

In April this year, Twitter removed the legacy blue check marks from the site, leaving only "verified" accounts to have Twitter Blue, the site's premium offering.

Change in "What's happening?"

In May this year, Twitter changed the "What's happening?" prompt in the box to write new tweets with "What is happening?" for users.