This was a bold move. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his campaign via Twitter Spaces, with Elon Musk, rather than through the gatekeepers of left-wing media. The idea was good in theory, but Twitter didn’t seem to anticipate the huge interest that the announcement would generate. Twitter Space was having technical issues within a minute of its launch. Users received a message that said, “Details Not Available.” The Space then started and stopped quickly again. Moderator David Sacks finally came on to say, “There are 380,000 people…I think we’ve just got a massive amount of people online so its servers must be strained.”
Space had nearly 700,000 active users at one time. “We are just reallocating additional server capacity to be able to handle the load.” Sacks stated that the situation was “absolutely crazy”.
Downdetector also reported problems with servers.
Holy crap! @RonDeSantis‘s announcement is crashing Twitter’s servers. Currently 656k listeners. The mod on the @TwitterSpaces said, “We’re just reallocating more server capability to be able to handle load here. It’s really going crazy.” pic.twitter.com/Z16J1u14Gj
— Paula Bolyard (@pbolyard) May 24, 2023
Sacks continued in the Space: “I think this is totally unprecedented in terms of the number of people who are participating. Twitter seems to be working better. I think the crash happened because you multiplied a half-million people in a large room by Elon’s account, which has over 100 million subscribers. “I think that great scalability level was unprecedented but with my meager following, it seems to be much better.”
Musk said, “Yes, I know you’re breaking ground when you have bugs and scaling problems.”
DeSantis made his announcement when Space eventually came back online. Musk was talking to him about the cancel culture at the time of publication. After the Twitter Space glitches had been resolved, it was a great way to announce a presidential run. DeSantis stayed behind after his pre-recorded announcement to talk with Musk and Sacks. The format was a mix of traditional Q&As and three guys chatting. Nearly 300,000 viewers are still watching after an hour.
I didn’t know what to expect from this new platform but I am really impressed with what I have seen so far. DeSantis was likable, intelligent, and well-informed. I hope that he and other candidates continue to do this in the future!
