First ever tweet turns 15 years old
First ever tweet turns 15 years old
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Fifteen years ago Jack Dorsey typed out a banal message -- "just setting up my twttr" -- which became the first ever tweet, launching a global platform that has become a controversial and dominant force in civil society.
The short tweet on March 21, 2006 by the Twitter CEO is now being sold at auction, with bidding reaching $2.5 million.
It has been a long, strange journey for the social network, which in January deleted former president Donald Trump s account after he was blamed for inciting the violent insurrection on the US Capitol in January by extremist supporters seeking to overturn his election loss.
The banning of a head of state from the platform was both welcomed and denounced in a sign of the thin line Twitter and other social media networks often try to walk between neutrality, freedom of expression, and moderation and prevention of abuse.
Bidding on Dorsey s tweet ends later Sunday. He has said he will donate the funds to charity.
Dorsey s tweet will be sold as an NFT, or a non-fungible token.
NFTs use the same blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies to turn anything from art to sports trading cards into virtual collector s items that cannot be duplicated.
