Supreme Court Cheered For Referring To 'X' As 'Twitter'

Social media users on X, formerly Twitter, praised the Supreme Court on Wednesday for referring to "X" as "Twitter" as the highest court sided with the Biden administration in a case over how far the federal government can go to combat controversial posts on social media.

On Wednesday in a 6-3 vote, in a dispute with Republican-led states, the justices ruled that individual plaintiffs don't have standing to sue the Biden administration officials over social media platforms' content moderation decisions regarding COVID-19 misinformation.

"We begin — and end — with standing," Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote. "At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute."

According to court documents, the highest court included a section in their ruling in which they stated for clarity reasons, they will refer to the respective social platforms of X and Meta as Twitter and Facebook citing they were known as their former platform names during the majority of events in the case.

"Since the events of this suit, Twitter has merged into X Corp. and is now known as X. Facebook is now known as Meta Platforms. For the sake of clarity, we will refer to these platforms as Twitter and Facebook, as they were known during the vast majority of the events underlying this suit," the court document reads.

Newsweek has reached out to X via email for comment.

Since the ruling was announced on Wednesday, the specific section has made its way across X with users cheering the Supreme Court's reference to "X" as "Twitter".

Legal correspondent at Business Insider Jacob Shamsian shared the section of the text and wrote on X, "The Supreme Court says 'we're still calling it Twitter, sorry'".

Another X user marysjogren1 wrote, "This is a Supreme Court decision that I can 100% agree with".

Journalist and special correspondent at Vanity Fair Brian Stelter wrote on X, "SCOTUS unites the country."

Another X user Robert Rio noted the change of the verification structure of accounts as a paid system is now in place, allowing anyone to be verified for $8 a month.

"And they're not paying for a blue check," Rio wrote.

The comments come after Elon Musk, a billionaire entrepreneur, took over the social media platform in a highly scrutinized purchase in 2022 when he bought it for $44 billion, took the company private and immediately implemented controversial changes. They included eliminating much of Twitter's staff, temporarily suspending some journalists from the platform and reinstating many of its previously banned users, such as Donald Trump.

Musk, who said he bought the platform to "help humanity" officially changed the company's famous bird logo to an "X" in July 2023 as part of a sweeping rebrand. Musk said as part of the rebrand tweets will now be called "x's," though when asked about what retweets would be called, he wrote that the "concept should be rethought." The company first began its transition to X in April of 2023, when the name of Twitter Inc. changed to X Corp.

However, since the rebrand X has struggled to catch on as several users still refer to the platform as "Twitter" and their posts as "tweets."

According to Musk, who explained in a post on the platform, the rebrand represents his plans to create an "everything app."

"Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself, but doing the same thing," Musk explained in a post in July 2023.

Meanwhile, Wednesday's case stems from the states having argued that Biden administration officials, including White House communications staffers, the surgeon general, the FBI and the U.S. cybersecurity agency, are among those who applied "unrelenting pressure" and tried to prevent conservative views from being seen on social media.

The Biden administration argued that it should have the freedom to talk openly to social media companies about hate speech, public health, election integrity and other areas where the promotion of false news must be combatted.