TWEET AND SOUR
Marion McMullen looks at the good, and bad of Twitter as Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover bid succeeds
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Twitter achieved a royal first in 2010 when the engagement of Prince William to Kate Midlleton was first confirmed on the site. Clarence House broke the news saying: “The Prince Of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Willliam to Miss Catherine
Middleton.” 6
Meghan Markle deleted her personal social media accounts in 2018 before marrying Prince Harry and joining the royal family. She and Harry now share an official Instagram account called sussexroyal.
Billionaire Elon Musk has bought social media site Twitter for $44 billion (£34.5 billion). The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive said: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” 7
Boy band One Direction boast one of the most popular UK accounts with 31.2 million followers. Niall Horan has 41.3 million following his personal Twitter account followed by Harry Styles at 37.6 million, Louis Tomlinson with
36 million, Liam Payne with 34.6 million, and
Zayn Malik with
31 million.
Harry Styles 2
The American site officially launched in July, 2006, and was created by Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass and Evan Williams. It was first known as twtter until the co-founders managed to buy the Twitter domain six months later. The first post was from Jack Dorsey who simply wrote “just setting up my twttr”.
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American space agency NASA used the site in 2008 to confirm that its Mars Phoenix Lander had found ice on the planet. It announced the discovery saying “Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE !!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! wOOt!! Best day ever!!!” 3
Feminist campaigner Caroline CriadoPerez, inset, received death threats and threats of sexual violence in 2013 from Twitter users – two of whom were later prosecuted – after she led a campaign to have Pride and Prejudice novelist Jane Austen replace Charles Darwin on the £10 note.
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Stephen Fry, below, briefly quit Twitter in 2016 saying “fun is over” after he received online abuse for making a joke about costume designer Jenny Beavan during the Bafta awards when he referred to her as a “bag lady”.
He called Twitter a stagnant pool and said: “Just one turd in a reservoir is enough to persuade one not to drink.” 4
Twitter notched up 338.6 million users around the world last month and more than 19 million people in the UK have their own Twitter account.
10 Joe Biden
American president Joe Biden’s tweet on the day of his swearing-in ceremony was the most liked tweet of 2021 with
more than four million likes. He wrote: “It’s a new day in America.” The president he replaced, Donald J Trump is currently banned from Twitter.