The 15 Major Changes to X that Every Fama Customer Should Know 

Over the last few years, the platform many knew as Twitter has evolved into what we now know as X. This started in 2022 when Elon Musk purchased the social network for $44 billion. Since the change in ownership, Twitter has evolved not only in name but in features as well as content.

As the largest online and social media screening platform in the world, Fama is here to keep you informed on all the major changes to the X platform. In this article, we will review what changes have taken place and how this has impacted Fama and our customers. 

2022

April 2022

• Elon Musk announces his bid to buy Twitter.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. 

October 2022

• Elon Musk officially buys Twitter for $44 billion.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. 
• As Musks’ first act, he fired the executive team, including the former CEO, CFO, general counsel, and head of Legal, Trust and Safety.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. 

2023

February 2023

• Twitter began making major changes to their APIs, and announced it will no longer offer a free API.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. 

March 2023

• Twitter announces their new API tiers: free, basic and enterprise. Each level had different associated costs and levels of access to the platform.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. Fama became the only online screening provider with Twitter Enterprise API access ensuring customers have the most complete content. Due to Fama’s API access, customers were not impacted by Twitter’s API change. Fama customers were not charged additional fees or surcharges nor were Twitter services impacted in any way.

April 2023

• Musk changes Twitter, Inc. to X Corp, putting an end to the iconic Twitter brand.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. 
• Twitter updated its content moderation policies to allow users to misgender and deadname transgender individuals. 
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. Despite these policy changes, Fama continues to screen for hate speech and intolerance, helping employers avoid hiring people who are discriminatory toward transgender individuals. 

June 2023

• Twitter limits the number of Tweets users can read in a day. Verified accounts are allowed to view 10,000 posts, unverified accounts 1,000 posts, and new and unverified accounts are allowed to view 500 posts per day.
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. Fama reports and customers were not impacted because of Fama’s Twitter Enterprise API access. 
• Twitter limits public viewability of tweets. People can no longer view Tweets without a Twitter account. 
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. Fama reports and customers were not impacted because of Fama’s Twitter Enterprise API access.

July 2023

• Twitter officially rebrands as X. 
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No impact. Fama begins rebranding Twitter to X, without any impact to customers.

August 2023

• X begins the process of making “likes” private by allowing paid users to hide their likes. 
  • Impact to Fama Customers: Some impact. Fama compliantly screens publicly available online content. X’s decision to allow paid users to make their likes private means Fama can no longer report on likes from paid users that are no longer public.. 
• Elon Musk removes the ‘block’ feature from the platform.
  • Impact to Fama: No impact. Fama does not report on blocked content.

September 2023

• X bans scraping and crawling on the site without “prior written consent.”
  • Impact to Fama Customers: No Impact. Fama reports and customers were not impacted because of Fama’s Twitter Enterprise API access.

2024

June 2024

• X formally allows adult content on the platform. 
  • Impact to Fama Customers: Some Impact. This change means there will be more publicly available sexually explicit content for Fama to screen. Customers may see more sexually explicit content in their Fama reports. 
• X makes ‘likes’ private for all users and removes likes from the API
  • Impact to Fama Customers: High impact. Fama compliantly screens publicly available online content. X’s decision to make all likes private, means Fama can no longer report on likes from users because they are no longer public.

As X evolves and continues to change, Fama will continue to provide the most comprehensive online and social media screenings on the market, enabling organizations and agencies to make hiring great people easy. We have made several changes to effectively respond to these changes while remaining compliant and eliminating the need to pass additional costs through to our customers. Our adoption of X’s Enterprise API  ensured uninterrupted screening of content on the platform. This is the type of leadership you can continue to expect from Fama and commitment to our customers.  

To learn more about how Fama’s online screening makes hiring great people easy, schedule a demo today.