On July 15, 2006, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams launched Twitter to the public. Originally conceived as an SMS-based status update service (Dorsey's first tweet: "just setting up my twttr"), the platform's 140-character limit (later expanded to 280) forced a new form of communication — pithy, public, and immediate. Twitter became the de facto platform for breaking news, political discourse, celebrity communication, and social movements. The Arab Spring, #MeToo, and #BlackLivesMatter all organized and amplified on Twitter. In 2022, Elon Musk acquired the company for $44 billion and rebranded it as X, triggering an exodus of users and advertisers and prompting the rise of competitors like Bluesky and Threads.
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