X

The end of the year means endless round ups of the best products, services and more. It also means that lookbacks such as Spotify Unwrapped are made available, and now X has decided to get in on the action by taking a look back at what the past year was like on Elon Musk’s social platform.

What does this look like? Number. Numbers and statistics. So, if stats are not your thing, look away not. Otherwise, let’s delve in and see what has been happening on X throughout 2025.

For anyone who uses X as a platform for chat more than anything else, the social media site’s latest move will be of interest. A new site specifically and solely for chat is now available, so you can deal with messaging without having to worry about the rest of the platform.

Separating chat and messaging away from the main site sees X competing more directly with the likes of WhatsApp. At the moment, the site has been designed with desktop users in mind, but X is also thought to be working on a mobile version.

Despite its age, there are many inconsistencies to be found in Windows 11. New-look aspects sit alongside components which have not been updated since the days of Windows 10, or even earlier.

As part of the continual evolution of the operating system, Microsoft has plans to bring a visual update to the Run dialog. What does this UI update mean?

Mastodon is to roll out the ability to quote other people’s posts in your own posts on the decentralized social platform. This is something that has been a very long time coming, with Mastodon having talked about it for months.

The reason it has taken so long for post quoting to become a reality is because of the protections that have been built-in. Specifically, users have controls over who is able to quote their posts in order to avoid “dunking” – the phenomenon that sees mass quoting used for negative purposes.

Elon Musk ‘s xAI startup is suing both OpenAI and Apple for alleged anticompetitive behavior relating to artificial intelligence.

Musk is focusing on these two firms because of the partnership and collaborative arrangements that exist between them. OpenAI has an agreement with Apple to integrate its ChatGPT tool into iOS and macOS. This is something that troubles xAI.

Many of the concerns about artificial intelligence can be overcome through transparency. And it is in the name of transparency that Elon Musk has announced the open sourcing of its Grok 2.5 model.

More than this, the AI firm will also make the Grok 3 model open source is around six months.

Microsoft’s approach to Windows 11 means that the operating system is never complete. This is evident in many areas, including dark mode.

Like so many companies, Microsoft jumped on the dark mode bandwagon quite some time ago – almost a decade ago, in fact. Work started on the eye-saving option back in Windows 10 but it is still not complete. However there are signs that Microsoft has not given up, and there are still more changes to come.

If you have ever wanted to output sound from Windows 11 to more than one set of speakers, you will be aware that it can be tricky. Yes, you can splice together cables, use various adaptors or fiddle with a confusing selection of settings – but it is not a quick and easy task by any means.

But this looks set to change. While some might think that using more than one set of speakers at a time is something of a niche thing, enough Windows 11 users appear to want it for Microsoft to start working on a way to achieve this simply.

Linda Yaccarin has made the surprise announcement that she is stepping down from her position as CEO of X.

Having been the head of Elon Musk’s social media platform for two years, Yaccarin has not given any reason for her decision to leave. However, her announcement comes after xAI’s Grok chatbot spewed out a series of antisemitic content.

Jack Dorsey – the co-founder of Twitter and Block, and the founder of Bluesky – took to X to share some enticing details about the latest project he is working on.

Called bitchat, this is a messaging app that not only has security at its very core, but does not require internet access to work. A messaging app without internet? Dorsey explains that this is a secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks.

X has announced the latest addition to Community Notes as the social platform seeks ways to replace third-party fact checkers. The company is giving developers the option of building AI bots that can write notes that provide further details, clarity and context for posts.

The AI Note Writers are not being allowed to run completely free, however. X says that the aim of the AI Note Writer API is to help humans rather than replace them, pointing out that the bots “must earn the ability to write notes, and can gain and lose capabilities over time”.

Looking to compete with the likes of Signal, Elon Musk is ready to rollout XChat to all users of his X social platform. Rather than being a separate app for chatting, however, XChat is essentially just direct messaging within X -- so who is it for, and what does it have to offer?

Taking inspiration from numerous sources, Musk says that in addition to text-based messaging, there is also video and audio calling. Other features include vanishing messages, the option to “send any kind of file”, and an undetailed encryption system.

X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, just yanked one of its most important privacy features. In a quiet and deeply troubling move, the company announced it is pausing end-to-end encrypted direct messages. Worst of all, there is no clear timeline or meaningful explanation.

According to a post from the official engineering account, encrypted DMs are being temporarily suspended while the team works on improvements. But here’s the kicker: users can still send and receive DMs, they just won’t be encrypted anymore. In other words, your messages are now visible to anyone at X with the right level of access. Hell, this potentially makes them more accessible to hackers too!

A few weeks after announcing plans for a different approach to account verification, X rival Bluesky has quietly launched the feature.

The decentralized social media platform has now started to open up verification to users. While any individuals or organizations can apply for verification or, indeed, to become a Trusted Verifier, it is certainly not the case that all applications will be successful.

Under a great deal of political pressure to do so, many social media platforms have opted to move away from using fact checking services. X and Facebook are among those to have adopted a “community notes” system that relies on crowd sourcing rather than third party companies.

Such systems have faced criticism because of the potential for manipulation, but these risks have been downplayed by social media firms. But now X has decided to take steps to improve its own Community Notes system to help detect suspicious activity that could be indicative of manipulation attempts.