By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
Technical Challenges Facing Elon Musk's X: A Detailed Examination
Introduction
Elon Musk, widely regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of our time, has faced major problems in guaranteeing the seamless operation of X, the platform that was previously known as Twitter. Despite his tremendous wealth and innovative leadership, recent events have highlighted significant technological challenges that the platform is unable to address. These problems have been highlighted at high profile events, such as Musk's recent discussion with former US President Donald Trump.
Trump Interview Incident
The interview with Donald Trump, a historic event aimed to highlight X's skills, was hampered by serious technological issues. The event was delayed by 40 minutes due to technical challenges on the platform, which frustrated both the competitors and the enormous audience waiting to watch. This was not a unique instance; a similar catastrophe occurred in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sought to launch his presidential campaign on the platform. On that occasion, technical issues hampered the event from the outset, casting doubt on both the campaign and X's reliability.
Preemptive Measures and Their Ineffectiveness
The day before his interview with Trump, Musk said that "system scaling tests" will be undertaken on the platform's audio chat function, known as "Spaces," in order to avoid a repeat of similar troubles. Despite these precautions, X was unable to avoid the technical issues that occurred. At one time, approximately 1.3 million people were listening to the interview, causing the term "crashed" to trend on the platform as users vented their dissatisfaction with the problem.
Speculation and Explanation
Musk ascribed the technical troubles to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which is a sort of cyber attack that aims to overwhelm a system with excessive traffic, leaving it unusable. However, this theory has been regarded with scepticism from many corners.
Experts are divided on this question. Matthew Prince, CEO of security firm Cloudflare, recognised the likelihood of a DDoS attack but stated that without X using Cloudflare's services, it was hard to determine. Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, questioned the platform's claim, arguing that the technical difficulties were more closely attributable to the quantity of live listeners than to a cyber attack. Toker pointed out that limiting the number of genuine users is an odd way to mitigate a DDoS attack, implying that the platform may have been dealing with listener capacity instead.
Cisco ThousandEyes, a network intelligence provider, also discovered a lack of data to back the DDoS attack claim. They noticed that usual signs of such an attack, such as network congestion, packet loss, and increased latency, were not present during the incident.
Staffing Concerns and Their Impact
A simpler explanation for X's ongoing technical issues could be the massive drop in its employment after Musk's takeover. Musk's decision to lay off a significant amount of X's personnel, particularly in the technical department, has most certainly jeopardised the platform's ability to manage large scale events. Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, said that "Spaces" has historically battled with high user traffic, which could have been compounded by the dramatic personnel reduction.
Rashik Parmar, CEO of the Chartered Institute for IT (BCS), highlighted these worries, stating that removing 80% of X's engineers would undoubtedly have a severe impact on the platform's technological robustness. Engineers are critical in protecting against cyber threats and ensuring the smooth operation of complex systems such as X. The platform's ability to safeguard its network and users from future cyber assaults has most certainly been degraded as a result of workforce reduction.
Whether the technical issues that X faced during these high profile events were caused by malevolent cyber attacks or internal flaws, the end consequence is the same: a platform that is struggling to live up to its potential. Despite Musk's lofty goal of making X into a "everything app," technical restrictions continue to erode the platform's credibility. As X faces these issues, it has to be seen whether Musk's leadership and future investments will be sufficient to overcome these chronic technological obstacles and restore trust in the platform.
