A startup involving a former Twitter trademark lawyer has launched a new social network under the Twitter name, setting up an unusual challenge to Elon Musk’s X over ownership of one of the internet’s best-known brands.

The platform, Twitter.now, is operated by Virginia-based Operation Bluebird, whose founding team includes Stephen Coates, a former Twitter trademark counsel. The service is being tested while a legal dispute with X over the Twitter name and related trademarks remains unresolved.

X has sued Operation Bluebird and sought to prevent the company from launching a platform using the Twitter name. Operation Bluebird argues that X relinquished rights to trademarks including “Twitter” and “Tweet” after the former Twitter business was rebranded. X disputes that claim.

Rather than presenting itself simply as a recreation of the old Twitter, the startup is pitching the network around greater user control over what appears in feeds.

A central part of that strategy is an artificial intelligence system called VERA. The system is designed to assess claims in posts, supply contextual information and sources, and attach trust scores. Operation Bluebird has said a later version will allow users to set thresholds determining which posts they see.

However, Twitter.now is currently offline. Visitors to the site are being shown a message acknowledging the outage and saying the team is working to restore the service.

The notice reads: “We’re down. We’re on it. Already learning things the hard way.”

It adds that the platform “will be back as soon as we can” and signs off with: “Love you guys 💙”.