When I went to school, X was the unknown to isolate. Back then we called it “despejar”, because what was a real school unknown was Catalan! The X of today is no longer that unknown that had to be found in the algebra equation. We are getting to know it quite well. Perhaps not everything about it is known, because the algorithms that guide it are complex and not easy to unravel. Just as the human soul is not! But we do know what they intend: that we get hooked on it, that we depend on it, that it irritates us and that we react to it. And to achieve all this, they make X trained to agree with us or to provoke a response if we dispute it. X's algorithms seem to set the polarized morality of our time.

Tesla CEO and X Corp chairman Elon Musk, owner of the former Twitter social network, has launched a full-blown war with Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary. The world's richest man is furious that O'Leary ruled out installing Starlink satellite internet's Wi-Fi connection on planes. Musk has taken to social media to ask if he should buy Ryanair to fire O'Leary. He did so through a poll titled "Should I buy Ryanair and put someone who's actually named Ryan in charge?" This is the same strategy, or a very similar one, to the one Musk used when he wanted to buy X, which he ultimately did: he acquired the social network for around $44 billion. Financial TimesIt all started with an interview on Irish radio station Newstalk, where O'Leary declared that Musk "knows nothing about airplanes." He added that this high-speed satellite connection would cost $250 million (€213 million), which his passengers wouldn't be willing to pay.

The Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has decided to fine X (formerly Twitter) €5 million for a very serious infraction. Specifically, the social network failed to cooperate when the agency requested information about advertisements for "financial scams" published on its platform, as reported this Thursday by the newspaper. Official State Gazette (BOE).

The major digital platforms (the big techThey dominate the economy. Digital technology has become indispensable, whether for information retrieval, social networking, e-commerce, operating systems, or smartphones. Each of these fields is dominated by a few companies. The leaders are Google with its search engine; Meta in social networking with WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram; Amazon in e-commerce; Microsoft with Windows and applications; and Apple in mobile phones. High fixed costs, network effects, and dynamic economies of scale (e.g., in the learning curve) make these companies increasingly competitive. big tech are dominant. The accumulation of data leads to feedback effects, in which more production and more sales induce more data and more network effects that make the company more efficient, improve products and services, and stay ahead of competitors. They are, therefore, markets that migrate towards a winner that takes the whole market or most of it (winner-takes-alleitherwinner-takes-most).

The philosopher Martin Heidegger produced a very fruitful distinction between fear and anxiety that is still fully relevant. Fear always has a concrete object that threatens the realization of our projects (and here "projects" can simply mean staying alive); on the other hand, anxiety has no concrete object, because it is precisely the impossibility of becoming emotionally involved in any project, the unease that manifests when we realize there is no ultimate foundation behind anything and we are alone before the precipice of free choice. What is more characteristic of the internet: fear or anxiety?

Two years after being named CEO of the social network X, owned by Elon Musk, Linda Yaccarino has announced through the same platform that she is leaving the position she held since May 2023. "When Musk and I first discussed his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry it out," the executive, who added that she is immensely grateful to Musk for entrusting her with the responsibility of "protecting freedom of expression and transforming the company."

X CEO Elon Musk will pay Donald Trump $10 million for ending a legal battle over the social network's ban on the US president. Trump's account on X, then Twitter, was suspended in January 2021, following the assault on the Capitol by his supporters. That day, Trump used the network to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. Twitter suspended the account, citing "the risk of further incitement of violence."

Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. He has made an offer and says that he wants to get rid of Twitter bots and anonymous accounts. He also wants to protect free speech and opposes permanent bans, including that of Donald Trump. 

"In recent years it is known to all that the network [Twitter] has been filled with fake and anonymous profiles that intoxicate and incite hatred. Many of them are even bought with money (bots) by the far right." This was one of the arguments given by the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, to justify her decision to leave Twitter, an unusual move for an active politician who has almost a million followers on this social network. Colau's gesture, however, is the demonstration of a phenomenon that many experts and users have long warned was occurring: the degradation of public debate on this social network.