Twitter spirals into decline and a plague of bots is totally out of control

Musk's Ultimatum Results in Mass Exodus

On Thursday , Musk told his employees stay with the company “working long hours at high intensity” or quit with three months’ severance pay.

So many quit that Musk closed the office until Monday.

Please consider Musk’s ‘Hardcore’ Ultimatum Sparks Exodus, Leaving Twitter at Risk

Elon Musk gave Twitter Inc. employees an ultimatum to either commit to the company’s new “hardcore” work environment or leave. Many more workers declined to sign on than he expected, potentially putting Twitter’s operations at risk, according to people familiar with the matter.

So many employees decided to take severance that it created a cloud of confusion over which people should still have access to company property. Twitter closed its offices until Monday, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg.

Musk tried, in the final hours before his deadline, to convince people to stay. Key staff were brought into meetings as the Thursday evening deadline neared to hear pitches on the social network’s future, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk, who had earlier said he was strictly against remote work, also sent a follow-up email Thursday softening his tone.

It wasn’t enough. Twitter’s internal communications channels filled with employees offering a salute emoji, which has become a symbol for departing the company. Former staff tweeted the salute publicly, too, along with their internal Slack messages.

Twitter Decay Underway

Twitter is increasingly vulnerable to hacks, bugs that can’t be fixed, and of course the bot storm.

Musk's solution so far is to charge 8 dollars for Twitter Blue, now cancelled, fire half the staff, then annoy many of the rest so much that they quite.

Bloomberg reports Twitter Staff Wipeout Under Musk Spurs Fear Site Will Decay

Twitter Inc.’s mass exodus of employees leaves the platform vulnerable to a broad range of malfunctions. The social network will succumb to a major glitch at some point, technologists predict. It’s just a matter of when.

The social network’s staff has shrunk to a fraction of its size since Elon Musk took over at the end of October, through layoffs and resignations. Musk this week asked employees to sign on to a more “hardcore” version of their jobs or leave; astonishing numbers opted out.

Multiple teams that were critical for keeping the service up and running are completely gone, or borrowing engineers from other groups, according to people familiar with the matter. That includes infrastructure teams to keep the main feed operational and maintain tweet databases. #RIPTwitter trended on the site, as users and departed employees predicted an imminent shutdown and said their goodbyes.

The complexity of these systems means they may require constant tweaking, maintenance and institutional knowledge of the way things are set up. Small bugs spiral into bigger bugs if not fixed -- and Twitter’s is a system with more than 1,000 micro-services, said one former Twitter employee, who declined to be named talking about internal matters. Bugs must be patched or they spiral into threats for users’ security and data.

Musk Complains About Bots 

Musk does a poll on reinstating Trump and the bots take over.

Lean Nothing

Is the point that Musk cannot fix the problems? I don't understand the poll in the first place. This is a decision Musk has to make, not a mass of bots. 

I am plagued by respondent bots like these.

The bots following me seem to post coherent replies but if you click on any links they take you to a crypto scam of some sort. 

I am not the only one. Danielle DiMartino Booth has been hit by a Bot Storm.

Bot Storm

#RIPTwitter

Sad Saga 

This is a sad saga. I like Twitter. I get a lot of ideas of things to write about from Twitter. 

Whatever Musk hoped to accomplish with his purchase of Twitter is in shambles.