Future Timeline

As a deadline loomed for Twitter employees to sign a pledge to work extra hours or request severance, Elon Musk eased a return-to-the-office mandate he issued a week ago, telling employees Thursday they would be allowed to work remotely if their managers assert they are making “an excellent contribution.”

The revision came as several current and former Twitter employees said they were surprised by the large number of their colleagues who were opting for the severance package and worried about how soon it would affect Twitter’s service. The employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal company developments.

Recent departures have left multiple critical systems down to two, one or even zero engineers, according to a former employee who was familiar with the situation and spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

“I know of six critical systems (like ‘serving tweets’ levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," the former employee said. "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.”

(Alternet) Twitter workers reportedly quit by the hundreds Thursday after refusing to agree to billionaire CEO Elon Musk's demand that they work longer hours as part of his self-described "extremely hardcore" plan to overhaul the social media platform.

As a result, the company that Musk purchased for $44 billion just weeks ago is in chaos as the mass exodus of employees and the billionaire's earlier decision to fire roughly half of Twitter's workforce are threatening basic, day-to-day operations at the platform used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

"It's no coincidence that a notorious union-buster and flagrant violator of labor law is effectively running one of the most viable tools we have for union organizing into the ground," responded the AFL-CIO as news reports detailed the internal turmoil at the company as Musk and his advisers scrambled to stop key employees from quitting.

Corporate advertisers have also been rushing toward the exits, pushed by Musk's hasty revamp of the verification process—which enabled some embarrassing and revealing spoofs of large companies such as the pharma giant Eli Lilly and the weapons maker Lockheed Martin.

The apparently dire situation, brought on by Musk's haphazard and dictatorial management decisions, sparked a cascade of "RIP Twitter" posts on the platform as users—including journalists, lawmakers, prominent public figures, and ordinary people—wondered about the platform's immediate and long-term future.

caltrek wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 4:45 pm Twitter in the Edge of Collapse as Workers Revolt Against 'Notorious Union-buster' Elon Musk
by Jake Johnson
November 18, 2022

Introduction:

(Alternet) Twitter workers reportedly quit by the hundreds Thursday after refusing to agree to billionaire CEO Elon Musk's demand that they work longer hours as part of his self-described "extremely hardcore" plan to overhaul the social media platform.

As a result, the company that Musk purchased for $44 billion just weeks ago is in chaos as the mass exodus of employees and the billionaire's earlier decision to fire roughly half of Twitter's workforce are threatening basic, day-to-day operations at the platform used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

"It's no coincidence that a notorious union-buster and flagrant violator of labor law is effectively running one of the most viable tools we have for union organizing into the ground," responded the AFL-CIO as news reports detailed the internal turmoil at the company as Musk and his advisers scrambled to stop key employees from quitting.

The article then devotes a couple of paragraphs to the Washington Post story cited above in this thread by Weatheriscool.

Further extract:

Corporate advertisers have also been rushing toward the exits, pushed by Musk's hasty revamp of the verification process—which enabled some embarrassing and revealing spoofs of large companies such as the pharma giant Eli Lilly and the weapons maker Lockheed Martin.

The apparently dire situation, brought on by Musk's haphazard and dictatorial management decisions, sparked a cascade of "RIP Twitter" posts on the platform as users—including journalists, lawmakers, prominent public figures, and ordinary people—wondered about the platform's immediate and long-term future.

Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/elon- ... 58689002/

caltrek’s comment: I will believe that Twitter has finally and truly collapsed when the number of Twitter feeds cited in this forum declines dramatically.

caltrek wrote: ↑Fri Nov 18, 2022 5:15 pm ^^^So why does everybody here keep citing Twitter posts?

Sure, maybe it is in the process of collapsing and being replaced, but it would seem it has a sometime to go before we can all truly say RIP.

(Axios) Elon Musk dropped a 24-hour poll on his own Twitter feed Friday night asking whether or not to reinstate former President Trump to the social media platform.

Why it matters: Since he took over the company, there's been a lot of interest in whether or not Musk would allow Trump to return to Twitter after a nearly two-year absence.

Details: Musk's new Twitter poll had a simple "yes" or "no" vote on whether to reinstate former President Trump.

• Musk replied to his own tweet Friday night, saying, "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" — which is a Latin phrase meaning, "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
• By Saturday morning, the vote total neared 10 million votes. Musk said the poll was getting 1 million votes per hour.