These are eventful days for Twitter, which has communicated to employees the closure of offices, with immediate effect, until November 21. A wave of skepticism has spread on social media about the future fate of the company that Elon Musk recently bought. From this moment, everything appears upside down.
In announcing the closure of Twitter’s offices on November 18, the company offered no explanation. However, the decision certainly comes after reports that a large number of employees have quit. And this following the fact that the new owner, the American multi-billionaire Elon Musk, had invited them to sign a commitment to “work long hours at high intensity” or, failing that, to leave. As known, the richest person in the world according to international rankings became the owner and CEO of Twitter after buying the company in October by investing $44 billion.
Elon Musk (center) with Ligma and Johnson, two employees first fired and then rehired with apologies. Photo Twitter @elonmusk
In the meantime, the hashtag #Riptwitter is live on Twitter with the assumption that the social network will be shut down in a week. Which, what, rather unlikely, if not impossible. For his part, Elon Musk has animated these last hours with a series of tweets. “We hit another Twitter usage record,” he wrote, before posting a pirate flag, featuring a skull on the classic black flag, and a meme alluding to Twitter’s funeral. Hence the new message: “A record number of users are tuning in to see if Twitter is dead and, ironically, they’re making Twitter more alive than ever.”
Mastodon challenges Twitter
In any case, the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk brings out Mastodon, a microblogging social network, based on free software, which has existed since 2016. And which now has the (not easy) possibility of becoming the counterpart of the social network. who chirps. Since late October, many in the United States, as in Europe, have left Twitter and signed up for Mastodon (mastodon). In particular following the announcements of Elon Musk to want to radically change many rules of the platform. Precisely because of the unusual high number of people who have decided to use mastodon.uno as an entry point to join Mastodon, the social network’s main Italian server experienced major traffic overload problems a week ago. .
Photo Ansa/EPA Justin Lane
Mastodon, however, remains largely unknown. Its operation is partially different from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And for the less computer-savvy, it may actually seem unintuitive, if not downright repulsive. Running Mastodon is not a single company that controls data servers. But anyone who wants to contribute to the initiative. Ownership is therefore generalized and a case like that of Twitter cannot occur, where a single person – in this case Elon Musk – takes control of the entire system. Each server, explains ilPost.it, is essentially a world unto itself. It hosts one or more specific social networks – instances – but not the entire Mastodon system.
Elon Musk in video link with the B20 in Indonesia (the business summit) on November 14, 2022. Photo Ansa / Epa Mast Irham