“In case this turns out tomorrow, my Instagram”. «As tw still closes, you can follow me on Mastodon». “Have fun while Twitter disappears, I’m going to play Pokemon.” These are some of the messages with which the social network has woken up this morning. Suddenly, the timeline looked like a farewell letter.
The reason? A departure of workers en masse. All those who were not willing to go through the aron would be compensated with three months salary. This is precisely the path that more than 500 employees would have decided to take, according to information from the Reuters agency. Other media point out that, even, the social network would currently be with less than 50% of the 3,000 workers that it still had on Thursday afternoon.
This great resignation would have been caused by Elon Musk with an ultimatum in which he warned that either they dedicated “hours and intensity” or they would be fired. Something that finally has not been necessary, since they have resigned en masse.
Musk fears sabotage
The first voice of alarm came a few hours later. Given this situation, and with the absence of the bulk of the workforce, Musk sent an email announcing the closure of the offices until at least November 21. According to the South African, the reason for the closure is to avoid possible sabotage of former employees.
With how quickly most workers have resigned, as journalist Zoë Schiffer points out, the Human Resources department is unable to process the casualties. Even, according to some former employees, they still have access to their developer accounts and company emails: “They still they’re trying to see who’s out».
At the same time, some users and former employees point out that Musk’s communication is becoming more belligerent. Current company managers have leaked an email to the press in which, faced with this situation, they blame them for teleworking: “If someone falsely claims that a worker does their job well or that a certain role is essential, they will be fired.”
Even some former employee has assured that Musk would be trying to convince specific profiles that do not resign.
Twitter at risk
Now, is it really likely to close Twitter? According to some of the ex-employees themselves, the company cannot be maintained with the current number of employees.
According to ‘The Verge’, there are “critical” and “essential” equipment who have resigned en bloc. Specifically, they talk about the company being left without the front-end, back-end, traffic, and file-maintaining groups, and the server would be gone.
In addition, the ‘Command Center’ would also have resigned, this being one of the basic formations of the operation. This team is made up of engineers who are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and their job is to solve all the problems they raise.
“With them out, there is no one to call when this blows up,” explained a former employee.
All this is added to the fact that, for weeks, many companies have been removing advertising from the platform. This is because, as indicated by a study by ‘The Washington Post’, the application of the new Twitter Blue (recently cancelled) caused an increase in hate speech, cryptocurrency speculation and pornographic material on the social network.
a great exodus
Faced with this crisis, with which Musk has responded through memes and jokes, many users have chosen to say goodbye publicly and share their other social networks.
Although so far there is no official closure announcement or Twitter, since the arrival of Elon Musk at the address the social network has lost more than a million users. Many of them turn to Instagram or other new networks, like Mastodon.