The Super Bowl is annually one of the most viewed and talked about sporting events worldwide, which makes it paramount that social media sites such as Twitter are up and running with maximum efficiency.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk issued a message to employees of the social media site on Wednesday, detailing that they plan to pause feature development and “maximize system stability and robustness” ahead of Super Bowl LVII.
“Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up,” Musk told Twitter employees in an email discovered by The Information.
This comes after a Twitter issue that left users unable to tweet and send or read direct messages on Wednesday. These struggles have raised concerns from many Twitters users on just how optimized the uber-popular social media site will be for the Big Game on Sunday.
Twitter is going to blow up like a Tesla in the middle of super bowl tweets
— Trey (@treydayway) February 9, 2023
Twitter getting all its kinks out tonight so it can fail during the Super Bowl
— Scott Stein (@jetscott) February 9, 2023
Man when Twitter goes down Sunday night during the #SuperBowl I am gonna LAUGH
— Neil Kleid (@neilkleid) February 8, 2023
One of the major feature developments that Musk is referring to is an increase in character limits. This can be seen in a tweet from Kevin O’Connell of The Ringer that goes into heavy detail about the Lakers trading Russell Westbrook.
Acquiring Russell Westbrook is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the Lakers. Dumping him with a protected first for this haul of three players might just save their season.
Jarred Vanderbilt provides excellent defensive versatility, connective passing, and solid… https://t.co/ZEzZDRh94g
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) February 9, 2023
The concerns about Twitter have even led to many advertisers deciding to sit out on Twitter advertising for the Super Bowl in case of a potential platform issue. according to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo.
5/ the ad industry trade publication notes that many advertisers are sitting out Twitter advertising for the Super Bowl. The article describes a company with an ad sales force stretched thin, routine sloppiness and errors in ad trafficking and more. pic.twitter.com/2UIDv2gErJ
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 9, 2023
