Elon Musk firing more people and Twitter outage round off just another day at the Blue Bird

Twitter is once again running a fever. It's chaos for users and it's chaos for those still working at the social media company under Elon Musk. Twitter went from announcing the 4,000-character extension to dealing with outages and errors throughout the world. 

need more than 280 characters to express yourself?

we know that lots of you do… and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that.

so we're introducing longer Tweets! you're gonna want to check this out. tap this 👉… https://t.co/lge9udRzLE

— Twitter Blue (@TwitterBlue) February 8, 2023

So, here is what's happening at Twitter:

Elon Musk fires from the hip again: The Platformer reported that Elon Musk fired a top Twitter engineer over his tweets not getting enough engagement. 

• The engineers had told Musk that the reason for his declining popularity was the public losing interest. They showed him how he was at peak popularity in April 2022 citing Google trends and how it's declined. 
• They also said that they have not found any issues with the algorithm being biased against him.

This resulted in:

• Now, Musk has reportedly instructed employees to track the frequency of recommendations of his tweets. 

Low engagement on Twitter? There are speculations flying on Twitter that reach has dropped compared to the usual rate for several users. Some are even saying that setting the account to private is resulting in increased reach. 

• Just last week, Elon Musk set his Twitter account to private temporarily to check the rumours. 

This helped identify some issues with the system. Should be addressed by next week.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2023

• It isn't known whether the trick solved the issue of reach. 

Is the view count button to blame? A few months ago, Elon Musk announced the view count button for tweets alongside, retweets and likes. 

• Musk had said this feature will allow users to actually see how vibrant Twitter is as most people just read a tweet and don't engage with it by liking or retweeting. 
• However, the Platformer citing sources inside Twitter reported that the view count function may have been counterproductive. 
• Sources say the view count is actually showing people how little engagement tweets are getting despite a sizeable following. 
• There's also a theory that smaller like and retweet buttons may have made it difficult for users to tap on the actions. 

The numbers are declining: A recent survey reported that Twitter usage declined nearly 9% in the US alone since Elon Musk's takeover. 

• The survey was conducted by the COVID States Project, a joint initiative by Northeastern University, Harvard University, Rutgers University, and Northwestern University. 

Twitter's numerous glitches: The Wednesday glitch on Twitter that showed people errors like "You are over the daily limit for sending tweets" or following, etc has irked several users.

Ew Twitter, you force us to subs blue but that feature still not available in some countries, and then you give us this? pic.twitter.com/S116pRsCIV

— 松本優奈 | 🇯🇵 (@matsumoto_yuuna) February 9, 2023

• Reports also say that mentions have disappeared, tweets from people users don't follow showing up on the feed, etc. 

Twitter is a mess - limiting who we can follow & how many tweets we send is stupid. What’s with the new 4000 word essay Twitter Blue subscribers can now tweet? Is this Facebook? Fix this entire mess @elonmusk

Who tweets 2400 a day? I only did 6/7 yesterday and it’s limited??? pic.twitter.com/WkfgxgvRD9

— Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) February 9, 2023

This author is especially irked with the news notifications bar being discontinued from the notifications bar. 

• Wednesday's outage was soon fixed. The Platformer reported that the error came up because a Twitter employee accidentally deleted data for an internal service that set limits on using Twitter (mostly to weed out bots).
• It also reported that the team working for the service left the company in November. 

Elon Musk spent $44 billion purchasing Twitter at a whim, which he's admitted multiple times was overpaid for. However, keeping the lights on at Twitter with Musk's work ethic has not been easy. From mass layoffs as part of cost-cutting, to Musk's errant firings, forcing employees to work overtime, the workplace has turned toxic for many hanging for just another opportunity to jump. 

On the other side, Musk doesn't seem to be in the good books of the authorities risking another million dollars in fines. Moreover, lawsuits against Musk and Twitter are piling up by the landlord of the office building for non-payment of rent and the fired/laid-off employees.