Elon Musk’s Twitter rebranding plans run into Indonesia’s anti-pornography laws

Elon Musk-led Twitter has run into a few rebranding snags as it morphs to an “anything app” called X. The iconic blue bird was abruptly retired this week as the billionaire businessman announced a change of logo and plans for a deeper overhaul into ‘X.com’. Indonesia however blocked access to the new web domain, citing anti-pornography laws.

The Muslim majority country with a population of 270 million prevented access to x.com on Tuesday under its robust anti-pornography laws. Officials contend that the domain had a history of association with gambling and pornography.

A Telegraph report quoting officials from the Ministry of Communication said that they were waiting for a confirmation from the Musk-owned company about the domain. The website in question has been been left blank for the past six years except for a single letter x.

Musk’s move had wiped out anywhere between $4 billion and $20 billion in value, according to analysts and brand agencies. 

On Monday, the company began removing the word “Twitter” from the sign at its headquarters. The brand change was so spontaneous that the city of San Francisco asked the crane to stop removing letters, leaving just “er.” “Twitter, or X, never proactively gave notice or inquired about sign removal/updates to the City, so it’s on pause until the Planning Department gives guidance to the Department of Building Inspections,” a spokesperson for Mayor London Breed said in a statement.

Meanwhile efforts to obliterate the word 'tweet' have not gone in Musk's favour thus far. For one, the word is still plastered all over the site formerly known as Twitter. Write a post, you still need to press a blue button that says “tweet” to publish it. To repost it, you still tap “retweet”.

Beyond the obvious however, Twitter had managed to become a verb implanted itself into the lexicon of the world over the past decade. Upending that overnight with a top-down declaration has proved an impossible task for even Musk.

(With inputs from agencies)