Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast where we explore the
latest news and updates on the companies associated with one of
the most Visionary minds of our time, Elon Musk.
And in this episode, we'll be discussing the recent Twitter,
outage the left users unable to access links or images on the
platform and the implications of the incident for the company and
its stakeholders, the outage was caused by a technical glitch
that brought down much of Twitter's internal tools, as
well as its public facing apis. It has raised concerns about the
technical infrastructure and vulnerabilities on the platform
which have been compounded by recent layoffs and the shutdown
of free access to the Twitter API.
Now as we dive deeper into this, incident will be exploring the
challenges and opportunities facing Twitter.
And we'll also discuss the potential Solutions and
Innovation that could help the company regain its footing and
re-establish itself as a reliable platform for real-time
communication. And social engagement Twitter's
website is breaking in novel, new ways.
And The company managed to recover from its latest outage
within a couple of hours, the story behind how it broke
suggest. There are likely to be similar
problems in the near future on Monday morning, Twitter, users
logged on to find a Thicket of connected issues.
Clicking on links with no longer open them.
Instead users would see a mysterious error message.
Reporting that your current API plan does not include access to
this endpoint images, stop loading as well.
Other users reported that they could not access tweetdeck.
Check the Twitter own client for professional users.
Now, everything went crazy KS took over the timeline is users
tweeted about the outage and often Illustrated their points
with images and memes that no one can see because they
wouldn't even load. Now, the Twitter API has been
shut down for outside sources for certain things and in a
tweet, the company offered the vaguest of explanations of what
was happening. During this time, they said some
parts of Twitter May not be working as expected right now.
We made an internal change that had some unintended
consequences. Now, the changing question was
part of a project to shut down free access to the Twitter API
on February 1st. The company announced it will no
longer support free access to its API which effectively ended
the existence of third-party clients and dramatically limit.
The ability of outside research has to study the network.
In a sign of just how deep Elon musk's cuts to the company of
been, only one site. Reliability Engineers, been
staffed on the project and on Monday, then engineer meeting
bad configuration change. The basically broke the Twitter
API now the change had cascading consequences inside the company
bringing down much of Twitter's internal tools along with the
public facing apis on slack. Engineer's responded with
variations of crap and Twitter is down the entire thing as they
scrambled to fix the problem. And we think Elon Musk was mad
about this, a small Epi change had massive, ramifications musk
tweeted later in the day after Twitter investor, Mark Anderson
posted a screenshot showing the company's API.
Failures were trending on the site.
The code stack is extremely brittle For No Good Reason.
Ilan said, will ultimately need a complete rewrite.
Now, they've had non-stop layoffs for the company with
only 100 or 500 50. Full-time Engineers now now,
Current employees are sympathetic to that view, which
places, at least part of the blame for Twitter's problems on
technical failures. That predate musk's ownership of
the company. And the fail whale became an
icon of the old Twitter for a reason.
There's so much Tech debt for Twitter 1.0 if you make a change
right now, everything breaks, that's what a current employee
said. Still, when musk took over the
company, you promise to dramatically improve the speed
and stability of the site and is associate screen, the existing
staff for their Technical prowess, ultimately cutting
thousands of people working who were deemed not technical enough
to succeed under musk's leadership but non-stop layoffs,
have left the company with under five hundred and fifty
full-time, engineer's, and just as former employees had
predicted from the start, these losses have made Twitter
increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic.
Outages Monday's, configuration chains was at least the six
high-profile service outage at Twitter.
The Year in January, Twitter, suffered an outage that lasted
for more than two hours and affected the site's mobile app,
as well as its web and API services.
In February Twitter, experience issues with posting tweets and
messages as well as notifications and likes.
And in March, a system irregularity, cause issues with
Twitter's ad platform in April, Twitter experience, a widespread
outage that affected users, worldwide for over an hour.
And in July Twitter experience, an outage that caused it, Issues
with notifications and finally the most out of recent outage on
Monday and this type of outage has become so frequent that I
think we're all numb to. It said, one of the current
employees at Twitter and those are only the service outages.
There's other issues that are going on to such as the one that
led musk's tweets to be made more visible on the timeline
than any other user which have also Royal the user base.
People got upset about that and in many ways, Monday's outage
represented, the culmination of musk's leadership at the
Japanese. So far the single-minded effort
to cut costs on his forty. Four billion dollar purchase.
He's been slashing the staff in a reducing Twitter's free
offerings and this paved a way for a single engineer to be
staffed on a huge project. One that is linked to several
critical interconnected systems that both users and employees
depend on and with few knowledgeable workers on hand to
restore service, it took Twitter all morning to fix the problem.
They were losing money during that time and this is what
happens when you fire 90. Percent of the company, one of
the current employees set as well.
Now, Twitter has technical debt to it's not just the recent
layoffs, the have left Twitter, vulnerable to these outages, the
company's technical debt or the cost of maintaining outdated or
inefficient code. And hardware systems has been a
long-standing issue as one employee notes.
There is so much Tech debt from Twitter 1.0 that if you make a
change right now, everything breaks Twitter a struggle
struggle to keep up with its growth.
And the demand for its users resulting in a system that is
coupled together with Legacy and spaghetti code, and outdated
technology, the company's internal systems and tools are
often unstable and unreliable as well.
And there is a constant fear of things breaking down to make
matters, worse. Twitter has been slow to invest
in upgrading infrastructure and modernizing its code base.
The company has been criticized for prioritizing new features
and products over stability and reliability.
And, as a result Twitter's been Plagued by outages and technical
issues for years in 2019. The company experienced a
massive outage less it for several hours, and affected
users around the world. The outage was caused by a
server. Configuration change that went
wrong according to the company and last year, Twitter suffered,
several outages that cause issues with tweets, direct
messages and notifications. The company blamed the issues on
an inadvertent change. We made to our internal systems.
And now with the recent layoffs in the shutdown, The free access
to the API. The company is facing serious.
Technical challenges again. Now Twitter said Ilan, said that
the code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason and
will require a full rewrite. And we're not sure what
language, they're going to use for this new rewrite, but it
will be a modern rewrite not using the Legacy code will
probably rewrite it from scratch.
So, where does Twitter go from here?
Have a companies clearly facing seven.
Dictated to get challenges both in terms of his technical
infrastructure and its business model, must cost, cutting
measures have helped the company's bottom line, make more
money, but they have also left Twitter, vulnerable to outages
and technical issues throughout the time.
He's been there. Now, at the same time, Twitter's
facing intense competition, from other social media platforms,
Tick-Tock Facebook. And the company's user base has
been stagnant for years in a struggle, to attract new users.
And An existing ones except Woody Allen.
Took the helm more users started joining up to see what the whole
parade was about, and what the drama was about over on Twitter.
Now address these challenges Twitter's will need to make
significant investments in technical infrastructure and
modernize its code base. The company will also need to
develop new features and products that will attract users
and keep them at gauge for future times.
Now. And perhaps, more importantly,
Twitter will need to re-evaluate its business model in Find new
ways to generate money. The company is reliance and
advertising has proven to be a double-edged sword as it has
both fueled the company's growth and left it vulnerable to
fluctuations in the advertising Market.
One possible solution is for Twitter to develop new revenue
streams such as paid subscriptions or premium
features for users. And the company is already begun
experimenting with paid features.
The new check marks of course, exclusive content from different
creators with a pay wall another Possibility for Twitter is to
embrace its role as a platform for real-time communication to
develop new products and features that cater to that
role. For example, the company can
develop new tools for live streaming or real-time
collaboration, or could focus on building a stronger Community
around certain topics or interests.
Ultimately the future of Twitter will depend on its ability to
adapt to changing needs of its users in the broader social
media landscape and the company will need to strike a balance
between Innovation and Ability between growth and reliability.
And perhaps more importantly, Twitter will need to
re-establish itself as a platform that people trust and
rely on and is stable the company's recent outages and
technical issues have eroded user confidence in this platform
and it will take a lot of time and effort to regain some of
those users trust as one current employee notes.
There's so much potential here, Twitter could be an amazing
platform, but it needs to invest in a sense.
Structure and its people if it's going to realize its potential.
So in the end, the fate of Twitter will be decided by the
company's ability to overcome its technical debt.
Adapt to changing needs of its users and regain the trust of
its Community. It's a tall order, but a Twitter
can rise to the challenge. It has the potential to be a
powerful force for real-time communication and social
engagement in the years to come. Thank you for tuning in to the
Elon Musk podcast brought to you by stage. 0 Productions, and
hosted by me will Walden. We hope you've enjoyed today's
episode and gained some valuable insights.
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