ISLAMABAD: After Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk warned employees to sign up for “long hours at intensity” or leave and reportedly triggered an exodus at the social media behemoth, Pakistanis were among Twitter users across the world on Friday who used humor and satire to deal with the possible closure of their favorite micro-blogging website.
Hundreds of Twitter employees are expected to be leaving the beleaguered social media giant following the ultimatum from Musk, who last month became the owner and CEO of Twitter after acquiring the company for $44 billion.
Media reports suggested that Musk was meeting some top Twitter employees on Friday to try and convince them to stay as Twitter told employees that the company’s office buildings would be temporarily closed.
The developments drew some hilarious reactions from Twitter users in Pakistan, where #GoodByeTwitter and #RIPTwitter were among the top five trending hashtags.
“Dear @elonmusk cannot imagine a world without @Twitter,” former Pakistan information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said.
“So please sort and stop giving us goose bumps.”
A user by the name of ‘TheHawk’ mocked all those who had paid for a verified Twitter account.
Pakistani TV host and comedian Shafaat Ali asked users to follow him on Instagram, Facebook and other forums, in case Twitter “dies” today.
Shehzad Ahmad, a cybersecurity researcher, shared a picture depicting how Twitter users were rushing to share their other social media handles before Twitter possibly went down.
Another user shared a picture of a gravestone and called it the “end of an era.”
One Twitter user opined a Twitter shutdown was “quite possible” after the closure of all company offices.
But professor and activist Nida Kirmani had a more serious take on the matter:
“I know many of us joke about being better off without twitter, but for marginalized groups, this is really the only space where they can share stories of state-sanctioned abuse & protest,” she said.
“Losing this space would be severely damaging for many whose voices are otherwise not heard.”
Reports of Twitter outages also rose sharply from less than 50 to about 350 reports on Thursday evening, according to website Downdetector, which tracks website and app outages.
