[dang]

Both names are linkbait. I think 'Twitter' is less misleading than 'X', so it wins the guideline on points.

Not saying it's a strong case, just that it tilts that way. Others would call it differently and that's always the case with a close call.

Just because you buy something doesn't mean you get to change popular usage by decree. There's a whiff of corporatism about that which sticks in my craw.

(I am not, god help us, making any implicit point about the muskwars.)

[samatman]

Ideally you'd do the same for Facebook. That other thing they call themselves is immensely insulting to a good word, and stolen valor to boot.

No, Zucc, you're not cyberpunk. And your overgrown jumped-up Ivy league hot-or-not definitely ain't.

[dang]

Well now that you mention it, the Twitter -> X, Facebook -> Meta, and Google -> Alphabet transitions are all kind of similar aren't they. I never noticed that before!

[nox101]

There's a difference

Meta owns Facebook so you can still talk about Facebook separate from Meta. Meta also owns Oculus

Alphabet owns Google so you can still talk about Google separate from Alphabet. Alphabet also owns Waymo.

X "is" Twitter. They aren't two separate things (a parent company and one of their subsidiaries) like the other two examples.

[dang]

Those are distinctions without a difference in popular usage. Alphabet may own Waymo but in most people's minds (or at least in my mind) it's all one thing and the name of that one thing is Google. Similarly for FB and Twitter. You can change a name on paper but that doesn't determine how people talk.

There's another interesting aspect: the original names Google/Facebook/Twitter are so much more expressive than Alphabet/Meta/X. The latter feel like constructs of some imperious baron on his march up the abstraction ladder, leaving the rest of us cold.

But I'm ranting now, sorry!