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 as a non-fungible token (NFT), with the last known bid reaching $2.5 million. Dorsey has said he will donate the funds to charity.
just setting up my twttr— jack (@jack) March 21, 2006
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.
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.
Dorsey listed his post as a unique digital signature on tweets marketplace 'Valuables by Cent' to be sold as an NFTs. Old offers for the tweet suggest that it was put for sale in December, but the listing gained more attention after Dorsey’s tweet on March 5.
The tweet’s buyer will get an autographed digital certificate, signed using cryptography that will include metadata of the original tweet, according to the Valuables website. The tweet itself will continue to be available on the Twitter website.
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