In the recent months since Elon Musks’ acquisition of Twitter, many users have voiced complaints about the site, partner companies have cut ties, and it all seems to be falling apart at the seams. All of this has cast doubt on a healthy future for the social media giant. Among various bugs, Elon’s personal but public mishaps, and controversial changes to the platform, the whole situation has garnered some backlash. This didn’t help the public’s already divided perception of Elon Musk; if anything, it made it worse. In addition to this, the biggest hit to his public image recently was in the form of spreading false information about an employee via public tweets. Haraldur Thorleifsson, a senior director for Twitter, reached out to Musk on the platform via tweet and was met with public mockery from Musk, including making fun of and casting doubt on his disabilities. The senior director was just inquiring whether or not he was still an employee of the company, as the head of Twitter’s HR department could not give him an answer. Elon has recently apologized for his actions, but it is unclear whether Thorleifsson will remain an employee. 

Backing up to the first few weeks of Elon’s purchase of Twitter: 90% of advertisers cut ties with the social media platform. This was primarily due to the implementation of Twitter Blue, a service that allows Twitter users to receive a blue verification checkmark for $8 dollars a month. Following this, many fake accounts were created to impersonate various people and companies. As for why most advertisers and partners cut ties with Twitter, it was when a fake account was created to impersonate the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, which caused the stock price to plummet. This caused many investors to panic and disband from the platform entirely. In response to this, adjustments have been made to the verification system. With the update, there came different subscription tiers. The tiers may be related to the person’s public position and the checkmark will also show if someone is a Twitter Blue subscriber. This eased public outcry about the issue, but the damage to the company was pretty significant. 

Controversy aside, the platform has been experiencing numerous bugs and glitches that have significantly impacted the quality of the app. This could be linked to the fact that over 5000 employees were laid off, so there aren’t as many people working to fix bugs. Outages on the platform have skyrocketed as well, with there being four in the month of February alone, compared to 2022’s nine outages across the entire year. Another recent bug was where media attachments were not loading at all. Any links, videos, and pictures were invalid and would not load whatsoever, for a short time period on March 6th. While it didn’t last long, it was still rather platform-breaking, and other media attachment issues have come and gone since. 

Twitter remains home to many journalists if not all of them. This platform has provided new legs for journalists and media members, as well as many independents (albeit some are untrained).  This also gives plenty of unreliable sources and people who spread hateful messages an outlet, such as Joe Rogan, or LibsOfTikTok. Fact-checkers have increased drastically in the last few years, though, to combat all the false news being spread around. They have even fact-checked Elon Musk on his own family history for everyone to see. Many journalists have taken to Twitter to share their news and ways to find it outside the platform, and because of this, many reporters now have a platform that isn’t just in front of a camera or on websites. However, Twitter needs to improve its design and user interface and build its team back up to work on the bugs if the platform hopes to remain the hub for worldwide news and involvement that it is. Elon Musk has a lot to make up for if he hopes to keep the platform running, and only time will tell if Twitter is going to make it through its current rough patch.