The surge in Twitter outages last week has left many US users worried that the service could face an emergency shutdown as the hashtags #RIPTwitter and #TwitterDown hit the US.
Yes, but. As small failures accumulate and the teams responsible for maintenance disappear, the social network can face an ever-increasing number of failures, delays and failures at the edge.
The driving force behind the news. Half of Twitter's employees, most of its contractors and top managers have retired, and several product updates over the past two weeks have weakened Twitter and forced it to support users in a crisis.
The shortcomings are still not in Twitter's core functions of posting and reading messages, but on the periphery.
- Copyright . Twitter's automatic copyright removal system failed Sunday night, according to Forbes, allowing users to upload copyrighted video clips that remained online for hours before disappearing.
- Hacked account Users who have reported account hacks say the company has been slow to provide solutions to recover their profiles. A reporter who spoke to Axios said that Twitter did not respond to their report for several days, and when it did, was unable to provide a recovery solution.
- Security . Last week, some users reported issues when trying to generate a two-step verification code via SMS text message that helps them sign in to their account.
- Loading data . According to Wired, other users have reported problems loading data files.
Advertisers are more concerned than ordinary users .
- Some major advertisers have suspended their Twitter campaigns since Musk took over.
- Advertisers are particularly concerned about the lack of scrutiny from the integrity and safety teams that monitor hate speech and misinformation on the platform.
- An Axios marketer last week cited the company's slow response to reports of bad content on the platform where their ads could be viewed.
- Anonymous reports (such as this one) suggest that Twitter's internal advertising technology is not working properly, with users reporting seeing older ads in their feeds.
As more top executives leave Twitter, advertisers are telling Axios it's getting harder to know who to consult to improve the effectiveness of their Twitter campaigns.
- The world's largest media buyer, M Group, is warning marketers that buying media carries a "high risk" until Twitter fixes several issues affecting content moderation, Digiday reported.
- Ad agency executives told Axios that Musk's decision to reinstate Donald Trump's account will force many clients to abandon their campaigns on the platform.
Between lines. Many of the warnings about Twitter's technical issues have come from current and recently departed employees, who say the teams responsible for managing Twitter's infrastructure are at risk.
- A former employee said earlier this month that Musk's purge affected 90% of the product and the "health" team, which is responsible for helping content moderators address reports of abuse.
- About 60 out of 560 people remained in this group last week, the source said. The team was building a system that would allow Twitter to respond quickly to messages.
To be smart. experts warn that Sunday's World Cup could be a unique time for app hosting opportunities.
- In 2018, during the international football tournament, Twitter reached 150 billion views, making it one of the company's busiest periods.
Musk himself doesn't seem to care about the support team and the issues caused by massive product changes .
- Twitter continues to brag about growing ownership and concerns about the return of Trump's account to brands and users.
What to see? As Musk tries to bring new programs and features to the platform, Twitter could run into serious technical problems.
- If these changes lead to bugs or problems, software veterans argue, Musk will need the experience of more released or fired developers.
Notably, on Monday night, Musk announced a second look at his new 8-month Priority Subscription plan, confirmed by a blue checkmark.
