With changes implemented by Elon Musk having disastrous consequences for Twitter, there has been something of an exodus of users. It is "something of an exodus", because while many people are finding new social homes on the likes of T2, Spoutible, Mastodon or -- if they can get their hands on an invite code -- Jack Dorsey's Bluesky, many people are hedging their bets and maintaining something of a presence on Twitter until it becomes a little clearer what the likely successor is to be.

Realistically, the battle seems likely be fought between Mastodon and Bluesky, and Mozilla has just announced an expansion of its investment in the former. The company behind the Firefox web browser has launched its own Mastodon instance, Mozilla.social, in private beta.

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Twitter has undergone some huge changes since Elon Musk took over at the social media platform, many of which have been very public. But others, like a recent update to its Hateful Content policy, have been quietly slipped out without announcement.

The policy change sees Twitter removing sections that specifically protected transgender users. This means that a long-standing ban on the purposeful deadnaming or misgendering of trans users has been lifted, leading to condemnation from LGBTQIA+ groups and angering the trans community.

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Twitter Inc no longer exists, having been merged into Elon Musk's X Corp. The change was spotted in documents relating to a lawsuit against Twitter, and it continues the CEO's drive to create X, "the everything app".

And having already made a great deal of fuss and noise about killing off "legacy" verification blue checks to force people to buy a Twitter Blue subscription, Musk has announced a new "final date" for their removal. It is 4/20. Because of course it is.

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Having tried various tactics to get Twitter users to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription, Elon Musk is now trying something new -- confiscation.

Having tried bribing users with Blue-exclusive features, and threatening non-subscribers with stripping them of verified status, the latest announcement sees Musk promising to take features away from anyone who doesn't pay up. Specifically, he warns that non-verified users will not be eligible to appear in the suggestions on the For You Tab, and they also will not be able to vote in polls on Twitter.

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With the chaos that has followed the arrival of Elon Musk at Twitter, it's often difficult to know which announcements to accept at face value, and which to take with a pinch of salt.

The latest announcement concerns the blue ticks used to signify verified accounts. The social platform has announced that "legacy" checkmarks (that is, those that have not been paid for) will be removed starting on April 1 -- April Fool's Day.

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For fans of statistics, or anyone who has an idle curiosity, Twitter has introduced a new bookmark count feature. As well as making it possible for anyone to judge the interest an individual tweet has generated, the new analytics are useful for companies and individuals looking for a more accessible way to track interactions.

While there will be privacy concerns associated with this, Twitter assures users that "your Bookmarks are still private", promising that "we'll never display which accounts have added a Tweet to their Bookmarks".

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When Twitter announced that it was ending free access to its API, it said nothing about what the new pricing structure would look like. But now the company has finally revealed the price tags for different tiers of access -- and it is worse than anyone predicted.

In all, there are now three tiers to choose from, each allowing for different numbers of tweets and giving varying levels of access. The cheapest, the Small Package tier, costs a staggering $42,000 per month (or just over $0.5 million per year), while the Large Package costs an eye-watering $210,000 per month (or a shade over $2.5 million per year).

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Things have been undeniably chaotic at Twitter since the arrival of Elon Musk, but the social network is still rolling out new features. Next in line for an update are direct messages.

DMs are due to receive a batch of new features and functionality, not least of which is a much-requested security feature -- encryption. But there is much more to look forward to. And if all goes according to plan, the new features will roll out later this month.

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Twitter has announced its latest update that limits what users may and may not post on the social platform. In the latest version of its Violent Speech Policy, the company now bans not only threats of harm, but also wishes of harm to others.

The policy still prevents users from posting what Twitter describes as "violent threats", "incitement of violence" and "glorification of violence". The update adds that users also "may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm", going on to explain that "this includes (but is not limited to) hoping for others to die, suffer illnesses, tragic incidents, or experience other physically harmful consequences".

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There is a great deal to be said in favor of making software, apps and code available on an open source basis. And this is particularly true of the algorithms that influence so many aspects of life, and control what is seen online.

Now Elon Musk has suggested that Twitter's own algorithm could be made open source -- perhaps as soon as next week.

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Free access to the Twitter API was meant to end yesterday, but the company has announced that there will be a brief stay of execution. Having already extended the cut-off by four days, Twitter now says that "we will be delaying the launch of our new API platform by a few more days".

The delay is blamed on "an immense amount of enthusiasm for the upcoming changes with Twitter API", but the lack of detail and clarity about what is happening is causing confusion and anger. Over the weekend, the company also contacted academic researchers to inform them that they will be losing free access to the API as well; it had previously been expected that such education and research-related usage would remain free.

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The turbulent seas of Twitter show no signs of calming since the tempestuous Elon Musk took over. Having caused confusion and irritation by blocking third-party clients, Twitter then announced that free access to its API will end this week, with the effect of killing off large numbers of bots, services and tools -- including Mastodon migraters' favorite Movetodon.

Ending free access to the Twitter API has, understandably, not gone down well, with developers being highly and vocally critical of the move. Now, having listened to feedback, Musk says that "Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free".

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The exodus from Twitter to Mastodon shows little signs of slowing down, and numerous websites and services have popped up to make it easier to jump to the decentralized social network. One such tool is Movetodon, designed to help anyone moving to Mastodon to find the people they were previously following on Twitter.

Movetodon has proved incredibly popular, but it has just been killed off by Twitter. The Elon Musk-owned site announced this week that it is ending free access to its API on February 9, but ahead of this, Twitter has blocked Movetodon's access to the API, rendering the service non-functionable, alleging violation of unspecified rules and policies.

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Having already banned all third-party clients, Twitter has now announced that it is completely dropping free access to its APIs. In an announcement made via the Twitter Dev account, the company says: "Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead".

The move will effectively kill off unknown -- but large -- numbers of apps and tools that depend on the Twitter API. While getting rid of free API access is unlikely to impact larger apps such as Hootsuite, those produced by smaller, independent developers are unlikely to be able to shoulder the costs.

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If you are a Tweetbot user who found yourself unable to access Twitter, you're not alone. Tweetbot, along with various other third-party Twitter clients stopped working on Thursday, it seems as though this is the result of an intentional block by Twitter.

Although the company has yet to say anything to either confirm or deny that third-party access to the Twitter API has been blocked, it is something that has been confirmed in leaked internal communication from Twitter engineers. One says: "third-party app suspensions are intentional".

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