Twitter Buckles Under Pressure During DeSantis’ Spaces Campaign Event – SlashGear

The audio-only stream was claimed by Sacks as “the biggest room ever held on social media,” but critics were quick to call that claim into question. When compared against other platforms like Twitch and YouTube, the numbers touted for DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces session aren’t particularly notable. For example, “Fortnite” drew 12 million concurrent viewers during its Travis Scott concert. Among other things, Sacks had quipped that Twitter’s servers were “kind of melting” under the load of concurrent viewers.

True ????

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2023

But more than contentious listener figures, it was the technical issues with Twitter as an online platform that created social media buzz. Critics are linking the “scaling challenges” to the aggressive restructuring that Musk undertook at Twitter as part of cost-cutting measures following his $44 billion acquisition last year. Aside from laying off nearly two-thirds of Twitter employees, Musk reportedly also aggressively scaled down the backend infrastructure and shuttered active projects. In the wake of the tech troubles, the #DeSaster hashtag started making rounds on Twitter, and even President Biden joined in taking a potshot, which Musk himself appeared to enjoy.