A former Twitter lawyer is testing a new mode of content moderation — and if he can get away with calling it Twitter

Stephen Coates launched Twitter.now, a rival to Elon Musk's X, with a different moderation approach.

Courtesy of Operation Bluebird A former Twitter lawyer launched Twitter.now, a new rival to Elon Musk's X.

The platform allows users to set their own tolerance for false or harmful posts in their feeds.

X sued Operation Bluebird, alleging the startup infringed its trademarks.

A former Twitter trademark lawyer has launched a social network with a familiar name.

Stephen Coates' startup, Operation Bluebird, launched Twitter.now in early testing on Thursday.

Coates, formerly Twitter's head counsel for trademarks, domain names, and marketing, told Business Insider that the platform is experimenting with a twist on content moderation : Users, rather than the company's central algorithm, will decide how much potentially false or harmful material reaches their feeds.

"We're going to use the phrase 'freedom of speech and not freedom of reach,'" Coates said.

"That freedom allows you to express yourself in the manner you choose as long as it's lawful, and that doesn't always ensure that you're going to get reach based on that content." Coates said that the new platform's VERA AI system is designed to assess posts, verify claims, provide sources and context, and assign a trust score to content.

A future version is aiming to let users choose a minimum score, filtering posts that fall below their preferred threshold.

Coates said that, for example, when a political leader makes false statements, a user could configure the platform to remove those claims from their feed without the platform banning the politician.

"We're empowering those users to be able to decide what level of harmful or adult or untruthful content they want in their feed," Coates said.

Coates summed up the idea colorfully: Twitter.now would permit someone to "scream obscenities at the children," but give users tools to ensure "the children won't hear it." Twitter.now is entering a market filled with would-be X rivals, all facing a moderation problem no social network has solved cleanly.

Bluesky, seen as a major alternative to X , has faced its own moderation-related criticism.