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Where to go?: Can Indonesian Twitter users live without the bird app?
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News source: Especially during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter has been a source of news that everybody depends on. (Unsplash/Claudio Schwarz) (Unsplash/Claudio Schwarz)
A
s former Twitter employees speak up about the possibility of the social platform's collapse, its users talk about the prospect of moving out.
Last Friday, Twitter users began crying out, saying goodbyes and ironically joking around as if it was their final days of seeing each other. For many, the possibility of the prominent social media platform shutting down was either something to be upset or joke about.
On Nov. 18, senior and former employees at Twitter headquarters publicly stated that, due to the lack of employees agreeing to Twitter's new, controversial leader Elon Musk's ultimatum of accepting "hardcore" work, many of those employees have left the social media enterprise. This became one of the factors that led to the predictions that Twitter's operations would break down overnight.
The social platform's doomsday did not come. Currently, the site is still up and running. But the general fear that the beloved (and also hated) social media site, which has generated prominent public discourses and opinions over the last decade, would break down remains among its users. A site reliability engineer also predicted to the MIT Technology Review a week prior that a collapse might happen gradually, giving it six months before more problems surfaced.
Many users are scrambling to look for other social platforms – whichever they deem fit.
"Twitter is part of my life. I don't know where else to go," 23-year-old freelance translator Fadhila Auliyaa Rahma said to The Jakarta Post on Nov. 18.
Others have started posting their Instagram handles so their followers can find them there. Some have already gone onto different platforms, like the previously popular, fandom-oriented Tumblr or the recently rising Mastodon.
