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clock-iconPUBLISHEDNovember 15, 2022
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Elon Musk Turns Off "Bloatware" Services And Now Twitter Users Cannot Log In

It might have been there for a reason.

James Felton headshot

James Felton

James Felton headshot

James Felton

Senior Staff Writer

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.

Senior Staff Writer

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.

View full profile
An illustration of Elon Musk.
People had their concerns. Image credit: Wirestock Creators/shutterstock.com,

It's fair to say that Musk's first few weeks as Twitter CEO have been a little shaky, with mass impersonation of brands and politicians, and him learning the absolute basic facts about the platform he bought for $44 billion via Twitter fact-checking his own tweet.

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Despite a big new advertiser deal with himself (Musk's SpaceX ordered an advertising campaign that usually costs around $250,000, though maybe less as Musk now "knows a guy at Twitter") this week is still looking like a bumpy ride, with Twitter engineers warning that systems may soon begin to creak and break.

Adding to those problems, according to current Twitter engineers, is Musk's desire to turn off "bloatware". Musk wrote on Twitter yesterday that "part of today will be turning off the 'microservices' bloatware. Less than 20 percent are actually needed for Twitter to work!"

While cutting bloat may sound like a worthwhile goal, coders and Twitter employees voiced their concerns that turning off these microservices would lead to unintended consequences.

They were, it appears, correct to have concerns. It's unclear what of this "bloatware" was altered during the day, but users began to report that, after logging out, they were unable to log back in again. 

The problem affected users who have set up two-factor authentication, an extra step at login to make your account more secure. Users (who are also greeted with the two-factor authentication check when changing other Twitter settings) reported that they were not sent a code, making them unable to log in.

Maybe it isn't all just bloat.


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