The return of Twitter could be a happy ending after the worst rebrand of all time. Remember when Twitter was the internet's town square, a place for news, jokes, and poetic one-liners? Fast forward to today: bots, algorithmic doom, layoffs, and an 'edgy' rebrand as X. Now, a small startup has relaunched the brand at Twitter.now with the mission of rebuilding social media with greater trust.

Operation Bluebird, based in Virginia, is presenting Twitter.now as a 'reclaimed brand'. One of the founders, Stephen Coates, has a background in trademarks at the original Twitter. X disagrees, suing Bluebird and seeking a preliminary injunction. Judge Colm Connolly's tentative ruling in April suggested that Bluebird may have a case.

The platform aims to give users more control over their feed by assigning trust levels to other users. It's also testing a fact-checking tool called Vera, which runs automatically in real time on every tweet. The governing principle is 'freedom of speech, not freedom of reach.' For now, the platform is only open to 'Early Access Founders' who pay $20 or 'Fighters', who pay $40 to register. The number of users is currently in the hundreds.

The first test will be whether the Twitter name still has enough power to win Twitter.now more attention than other X alternatives. The real test for the new Twitter will be whether it can build a social platform that doesn't feel antisocial.