Elon Musk says Twitter needs 'complete rewrite' after global outage

Elon Musk has said that 'a complete rewrite' is needed following a global Twitter outage.

Users of the social media platform reported difficulties logging in, as well as loading pictures and videos, and the company said the problems were owed to 'an internal change'.

"Some parts of Twitter may not be working as expected right now," a tweet explained.

"We made an internal change that had some unintended consequences. We're working on this now and will share an update when it's fixed."

Shortly after, Twitter announced that the platform was back 'working as normal', with CEO Musk explaining that the code stack is 'extremely brittle'.

Responding to a tweet, he wrote: "A small API [application programming interface] change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite."

@elonmusk/Twitter

Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, said Twitter's sixth major outage of the year was indicative of insufficient testing.

He told Reuters: "Error messages supplied by Twitter's link sharing platform and internal API point to problems with the platform's microservices, which are having a knock-on effect on other aspects of the service.

"This suggests Twitter has not been effectively testing its updates before pushing them to the public."

Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October and wasted no time in bringing in a raft of controversial changes.

More than half of the company's workforce have been sacked or chosen to resign since Musk took charge, and unsurprisingly, this has resulted in chaos, according to an engineer who spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity.

ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

"For someone on the inside, it's like a building where all the pieces are on fire," he said.

"When you look at it from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything.

"A totally new person, without the expertise, is doing what used to be done by more than 20 people. That leaves room for much more risk, many more possibilities of things that can go wrong.

"There are so many things broken and there's nobody taking care of it, that you see this inconsistent behaviour."

ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

The engineer went on to say that the problems stem from Musk's apparent lack of faith in his new employees - which he said is evidenced by the security presence he keeps by his side at all times.

"Wherever he goes in the office, there are at least two bodyguards - very bulky, tall, Hollywood movie-[style] bodyguards," he claimed. "Even when [he goes] to the restroom."

UNILAD has contacted Twitter for comment - though insiders told the BBC that the company's entire communications team had been sacked or resigned, so we won't hold our breath.

Topics: Elon Musk, Twitter, News, US News, Technology, Social Media

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey