Twitter Experiences Major Outage, Elon Musk Responds

On Wednesday afternoon, Twitter experienced a major outage that impacted users around the world. According to website tracking firm Downdetector, reports of the outage peaked at around 5 p.m., with users unable to access their accounts for hours at a time. In response to the incident, Twitter issued an apology on the platform and did not immediately respond to requests for comment about what had happened. This marks one of first major site malfunctions under Elon Musk’s leadership since he acquired it in October 2020; prior to this, Musk had asked employees to commit to being “extremely hardcore” or accept three months’ severance upon their exiting the company after layoffs cut more than half its workforce (7,500 people).

 In an effort to make Twitter less reliant on advertising revenue and increase user satisfaction, Musk launched a new version of its subscription service -Twitter Blue- which allows users access verification if they pay a monthly fee ($8). Unfortunately this improvement experienced its own set of issues shortly after launching when there was an influx of fake accounts. This was due to being able allow those who purchased the subscription post longer messages than other users (“Sometimes you need more words”). As of now it is still uncertain why exactly Wednesday’s outage took place and which measures have been taken by Musk and his team to ensure it doesn’t happen again in the future.

However, updates from Twitter suggest they are working hard in order to identify and address the root issues as soon as possible. Despite the inconvenience, many users were amused by Musk’s response to the outage. On Wednesday evening, he tweeted simply: “This is why I bought Twitter.” The tweet was met with a mixture of amusement and understanding from other users as they awaited an official statement from Twitter.

In any case, it remains to be seen how this incident will shape the future of Twitter under Musk’s direction. It is certain, though, that he and his team will be taking all necessary steps to ensure that a similar issue does not occur again. As users continue to rely on Twitter for news, entertainment, and connecting with friends and family, they will be looking to Musk and the rest of the team to ensure the platform remains reliable. Only time will tell what kind of impact this incident has on Twitter’s future and its ability to serve its users.