What makes it misleading? It says just that. Although the article also says that by not buying the _exclusive_ rights to the image the 'cheap logo'-trick might backfire when other (twitter-like) websites would (legally) use the same image.

"Nothing is stopping people from making sites that ape, mock or build upon Twitter using its own official graphic."

Looks like there was some back-and-forth with claims of a misleading title in the comments on the article. Rather than try and keep up with what was changed and when, I dropped all interest with what the author had to say due to their shoddy writing style.

It's up to interpretation whether or not the title is "misleading," but one thing is for certain—it's definitely sensationalist.

To me, stock photography/illustrations have nothing to do with "crowdsourcing," (e.g.: 99designs, LogoTournament).