At 11:35 pm on May 1st, 2011, President Barack Obama announced to the world that United States Navy SEALs had killed Osama Bin Laden. However, many had already heard of the top secret raid… on Twitter. 70 minutes before President Obama’s announcement, a White House insider confirmed the story. In just five years, Twitter evolved from a workplace messaging service to an outlet where major world events were first reported.
Twelve years later, Twitter’s influence on global affairs has only grown. Journalists and politicians promote their messages on Twitter, leading millions to flock to the site for news. Intelligence agencies employ Twitter to influence foreign populations through information campaigns. Internet sleuths and governments alike leverage information shared on Twitter to investigate crimes. Protestors utilize Twitter to spread information and organize. Twitter is globally pervasive, generating a real-time record of daily events.
However, despite its ubiquity and cultural eminence, Twitter may be on the precipice of collapse. In October 2022, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, purchased Twitter and quickly threw the company into chaos. Musk laid off over two-thirds of Twitter’s employees, causing veteran engineers to claim the site is at risk of an inadvertent shutdown. Revenue dropped 40%, and Musk has floated the possibility of bankruptcy.
While there are reasons to doubt that a collapse is imminent, Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has irrevocably changed the...
The Dangote Group has become aware of a publication titled “Aliko Dangote Speaks Out on Why He Distanced Himself from Tony Elumelu,” which is false, malicious, and baseless. At no time did the Pre...