According to reports, like this one from The Verge, in a move that no one, except everyone on earth, saw coming, Twitter is in a complete and total breakdown.  The Verge reported that “Multiple ‘critical’ teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned.”

Twitter employees quit by the hundreds after new CEO Elon Musk allegedly demanded that they work longer hours as part of his  “extremely hardcore” plan to overhaul the company.

“We are witnessing the real-time destruction of one of the world’s most powerful communication systems.”

via Twitter

The Washington Post said that “the number of engineers tending to multiple critical systems had been reduced to two, one, or even zero” and continued:

“In an early sign that the number of those declining to sign was greater than anticipated, Musk eased off a return-to-office mandate he had issued a week ago, telling employees Thursday they would be allowed to work remotely if their managers assert they are making ‘an excellent contribution. But it was too late to keep Twitter from a precarious position, several workers said.”

One Twitter employee told the newspaper that “there is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system,” adding that Twitter “will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.”

via Twitter

The shakeup will affect many more people that just Twitter employees, as many rely on the platform for their livelihoods.

Labor Jounralist Kim Kelly tweeted:

“As a lot of freelancers have been saying, if Twitter goes down, our livelihoods suffer. Twitter is where I share my work, promote my book, connect with editors, sources, other journalists, workers, activists, and organizers. We all know no corporate media outlet is gonna hire me.

One anti-worker, union-busting, sniveling, sack o’ shit billionaire is casually torpedoing the livelihoods of thousands of precarious media workers in the name of ‘free speech. The media elite WILL BE FINE. Their platforms are safe. It’s the rest of us who’ll be hung out to dry.”

Twitter CEO Elon Musk via Flickr / Steve Jurvetson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Nicole Gill, director of advocacy group Accountable Tech, said:

“We are witnessing the real-time destruction of one of the world’s most powerful communication systems. Elon Musk is an erratic billionaire who is dangerously unqualified to run this platform.”

“Unless and until Musk can robustly enforce Twitter’s existing community standards. The platform is not safe for users or advertisers. Elon’s ‘hellscape’ is already here.”

 

 

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Christopher Powell