[Technology] Elon Musk and Twitter

[Audax]

On the flip side can't all those people who worked there and/or invented it just build a rival platform?

They could, but it would take time and money. More likely that many of them will find roles in alternative companies. Some of them will end up getting involved with Mastodon.

 

[Stat Brother]

Todd Boehly is preparing a $450bn bid for it, apparently...

'we' own Twitter as well?!!!

 

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

'we' own Twitter as well?!!!

Quite, Elon Musk is actually just one of Uncle Tone's algorithms, not one of his better ones mind you.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Well thought of by the employees, it seems.

 

[dazzer6666]

@beorhthelm The software to make Twitter work behind the scenes will be a massive tech stack. And unless they've been extremely careful over the years as they've layered in new features, there will be significant interdependencies in the code base. Setting aside Twitter itself, with such a large user base they will also have rather complex and complicated infrastructure to run the site - things like auto-scaling, alerting systems, etc etc. Cut the staff base by 90% (which is what some folks with good sources are suggesting has now become a reality) and it will be impossible that the remaining 10% have all of the knowledge needed to keep Twitter running reliably if something does go wrong.

I don't think Twitter will just explode and go down in a big bang. However, the more staff he drives out the door the more likely a catastrophic failure becomes. They're already seeing small scale problems (eg the 2FA went down, apparently there's issues with notifications, etc). The fewer experience Twitter staff they have, the worse the "brain drain" becomes. New staff coming in will be a) hard to find, and b) lacking any context on how the code works and where the interdependencies are. That runs the risk of a new staffer attempting to fix an emerging issue causing even bigger problems.

Layer in a big world event that could cause a big spike in traffic ... say, a football world cup, or Russia doing something really stupid ... and the risks rise rapidly.

The risk of a disgruntled employee leaving a nice little departing tech bomb in there must be huge now as well…….

 

[sparkie]

If Musk tanks Twitter he'll lose $44billion, right? How does that affect him? He didn't buy it with all his money did he? Won't the banks, people etc who helped fund it be slightly unhappy if he deliberately ruins it?

On the flip side can't all those people who worked there and/or invented it just build a rival platform?

As you might have guessed I'm neither a finance nor tech genius...

BlueSky Social, I believe, which should include an App. But it's not ready yet.

 

[Questions]

Quite, Elon Musk is actually just one of Uncle Tone's algorithms, not one of his better ones mind you.

He could be Mole Sunk if one of Uncle Tone’s anagrams

 

[The Clamp]

Is he deliberately dismantling it?

 

[Bozza]

If Musk tanks Twitter he'll lose $44billion, right? How does that affect him? He didn't buy it with all his money did he? Won't the banks, people etc who helped fund it be slightly unhappy if he deliberately ruins it?

On the flip side can't all those people who worked there and/or invented it just build a rival platform?

As you might have guessed I'm neither a finance nor tech genius...

More like $46.5bn, as he had to also fund c$2.5bn of closing costs. Funding was roughly...

Musk's initial twitter holding - $4bn
Musk's cash from selling Tesla shares - $20bn
Investors (Larry Ellison and the Saudis) - $7bn
Bank loans (secured against twitter itself)- $13bn

It seems to be unclear where the remaining $2-3bn came from.

 

[rogersix]

They allowed plenty of misinformation. All the time.

When you remove Trump but allow groups like the Taliban to operate on twitter that says a lot about those who were in power on twitter.

what it actually says, is that it is easy to catergorize trump as being more detatched from reality than the taliban,

but i know you need to cuddle up to your agenda, so as you were!

 

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

It seems to be unclear where the remaining $2-3bn came from.

The cup final money?

 

[Guinness Boy]

The "simple" bit is where you are going wrong.

One thing I've learned in my career - largely spent in systems development - is every business and system looks really, really simple from the outside.

Share registration: just a list of names, addresses and how many shares each person owns.
Electricity supply: just a list of names, addresses and how much power each home uses.
Childcare vouchers: just a list of parents, kids, nurseries and how much each parent has to spend.
Employee share plans: just a list of names and addresses and how many options each employee has been granted.


Twitter: surely it's just a list of accounts and tweets each one has made, right?

Yep. I've worked for software companies for over 20 years now, mainly enterprise scale platforms in highly regulated industries. The customer facing, digital on top type stuff absolutely has to look as simple as possible to the user, but underneath there's a mass of rules, workflow and integrations. Increasingly common nowadays for "A/B" testing to leave what are effectively test journeys out there as well.

I've done over ten successful implementations in that time that are all still live. There's not a single one I'd want unsupported though. Because, it will be fine until "something" happens. And something always does.

 

[Fungus]

Yep. I've worked for software companies for over 20 years now, mainly enterprise scale platforms in highly regulated industries. The customer facing, digital on top type stuff absolutely has to look as simple as possible to the user, but underneath there's a mass of rules, workflow and integrations. Increasingly common nowadays for "A/B" testing to leave what are effectively test journeys out there as well.

I've done over ten successful implementations in that time that are all still live. There's not a single one I'd want unsupported though. Because, it will be fine until "something" happens. And something always does.

This. Even if the system is "perfect", the environment it operates in will change. And that's without making yourself a prize target for hackers.

 

[dazzer6666]

Yep. I've worked for software companies for over 20 years now, mainly enterprise scale platforms in highly regulated industries. The customer facing, digital on top type stuff absolutely has to look as simple as possible to the user, but underneath there's a mass of rules, workflow and integrations. Increasingly common nowadays for "A/B" testing to leave what are effectively test journeys out there as well.

I've done over ten successful implementations in that time that are all still live. There's not a single one I'd want unsupported though. Because, it will be fine until "something" happens. And something always does.

Would echo this as a sponsor and end-user of internal systems in a large organisation. The (hopefully) idiot-proof and resilient GUI is always a very, very long way from what's in the box running it.

 

[US Seagull]

For people signing up with Mastodon, which server did you use? It seems like...a lot

Servers

Find where to sign up for the decentralized social network Mastodon.

joinmastodon.org

 

[Audax]

For people signing up with Mastodon, which server did you use? It seems like...a lot

Servers

Find where to sign up for the decentralized social network Mastodon.

joinmastodon.org

From what I'm told, it doesn't matter *that* much. Advice I've seen is to go for something in your local region so you get content relevant to that region by default (so, a UK-based server should be first choice for us). You can still follow people, and see content, from other servers. And you can easily move servers if you find the one you started on isn't right for you.

 

[chickens]

I have to say I’m finding all this fascinating. Twitter itself is a fascinating social experiment, and I do wonder if Musk bought it with the idea of bringing it down.

I feel it does distort our politics as politicians can feel that the views expressed on Twitter are representative of the public, instead of just being representative of the subsection of the public who are Twitter users, and it has clearly been manipulated on an industrial scale in large-scale misinformation campaigns.

Having said that, while I left Twitter personally for the sake of my mental health, I would be sorry to see it go, and fear for Mastodon if it does become Twitter 2.0 - I’m not sure it’s ready on any level, though I may be overly pessimistic.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

For people signing up with Mastodon, which server did you use? It seems like...a lot

Servers

Find where to sign up for the decentralized social network Mastodon.

joinmastodon.org

It doesn't matter apparently as they all talk to each other.

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Bluesky is another Twitter alternative apparently which is in the process of being built and not ready yet. Just think of all the number of websites and organisations documentation that will need to be updated to remove the twitter 'bird' when it dies.

 

[jakarta]

Twatter and Musk - a marriage made in heaven, hope they both get what each other deserves...