[Hamsini - Non-core post 6] Swan song for Twitter?

As Ray's post last week suggests, it is fascinating to watch what is happening on Twitter live. It's wildly unclear whether the platform will survive Musk's purchase -- or in what form. Are we watching a platform "die," mutate into something unrecognizable, or just re-derive itself? No grand theories here, but it's interesting to see the connections between labor and infrastructure that are being made visible as the platform is being systematically broken down by the least believable Bond villain. As well as his engagement in what frankly feels like a "meme wars" style of public discourse.

The situation has real and devastating consequences for the people laid off, as well as for users who rely on Twitter to exchange information. But it's also a bit of a circus. Tracking some interesting moments here:

• Good recap of some of the chaos (gets a little NSFW towards the bottom of the thread): https://twitter.com/christapeterso/status/1592317592966168576
• In addition to mass layoffs of Twitter employees, Musk has let go thousands of contractors who work on content moderation and infrastructural services (many of which were apparently shut off): https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/1591608302076858371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
• Employees fact-checking Musk's Twitter pronouncements are being fired in Tweet replies: https://twitter.com/SixTwoPoo/status/1592202267977191425?t=4l6BFOepqq_6H66h-iUXlQ&s=19
• Perhaps my favorite moment so far: Some geniuses took advantage of Twitter Blue to impersonate corporate accounts, calling out their neoliberal inhumanity and tanking their stocks. Here's what happened to Eli Lilly, for example: billions of dollars lost when an impersonator tweeted that insulin was now free. https://twitter.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1591133819918114816?t=iBm5GQ5bM_jxrKH6cSTiQQ&s=19. Eli Lilly is now freezing its ad campaigns: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/14/twitter-fake-eli-lilly/.
• As a result of shutting down seemingly unnecessary services, yesterday users noted 2fa broke -- not because the authentication isn't working but because the service for sending codes to phones was shut off: https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-two-factor-sms-problems/

Of course, while Twitter has stolen the show, it's worth contextualizing what's happening against all of the other massive tech layoffs in recent weeks: https://twitter.com/debarghya_das/status/1592214346289274880