The new Twitter wants $20 to lock your handle, but its terms guarantee nothing

Twitter is back, or, at least the name is. Operation Bluebird has opened early access to twitter.now, a new social network that promises to rebuild the town square around trust and user control. Paying $20 supposedly makes you a “Founder,” gets you in before the public, locks your handle, and awards you a numbered badge. If you want to help fund the company’s fight with a certain billionaire whose company disputes its claim to the Twitter trademarks, you can pay $40 or more and upgrade your status to “Fighter.”

Twitter.now is not affiliated with X Corp. The founding team behind it includes former Twitter trademark counsel Stephen Coates. X sued the startup last year after it moved to launch under the Twitter name. However, in a petition filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office, Operation Bluebird argued that X had legally abandoned trademarks including “Twitter” and “Tweet.”

Twitter.now is selling you Twitter nostalgia

$20 doesn’t actually guarantee your handle

Some (including me) would argue that X has reached levels of technological dystopia that would make Neo from The Matrix‘s jaw drop. I wouldn’t blame it all on Elon Musk; the platform already housed a fair bit of controversy before the blue icon was stripped away for an edgy X against a black background. However, Musk’s questionable decisions — from changing its terms in ways that gave users another reason to delete their accounts to using their posts to train Grok by default — have made many of us miss the poor old bird.

That nostalgia is precisely what makes Twitter.now’s pitch effective. Unfortunately, its terms contradict one of the clearest promises on its homepage.

Although the website says $20 “locks your handle,” the official terms explicitly state that paying the early-access fee doesn’t purchase, reserve, or guarantee the availability, exclusivity, or continued use of any username or handle. Handles remain licensed rather than owned, and Bluebird may reject, change, reclaim, reassign, or remove them.

The terms provide similarly little certainty elsewhere. Early-access features may be incomplete, unavailable, or discontinued. The company may change or straight up discontinue the entire service without notice. Purchases also become final and non-refundable once you go for whichever early-access tier is available.

There’s another bleak irony. Despite presenting itself as a trust-focused alternative to X, Bluebird gives itself a permanent, transferable, worldwide license to use posts for commercial purposes, advertising, marketing, and training AI models.

You can already claim a handle on similar platforms for free

Bluesky has been open to everyone without an invitation for years, offering a familiar Twitter-like experience charging you for handles. Twitter.now is asking you to pay for that privilege before proving it can attract people who would make another public square worth visiting.

Perhaps Twitter.now will eventually give us the Twitter successor we miss. But it’s going to take a minute before $20 buys Twitter back.