Ron DeSantis’s long-anticipated 2024 campaign bid for the White House on Twitter Spaces was marred by a host of glitches that gave his political rivals enough ammunition to mock the Florida governor. Long silences and persistent echoes marred Mr DeSantis’s Wednesday announcement that he made on Twitter’s audio group-chat feature with billionaire Elon Musk who has long boasted about several overhauls to the social media platform to make it better than it was under previous leadership. The Twitter feature is a way in which users can gather in a “space” and have live audio conversations, with anyone in a space being allowed to “join, listen, and speak”, as per the website. At one point of time, the controversial Republican governor himself disappeared from the audio-only livestream. The Twitter app repeatedly crashed for users who tuned in for the announcement. Tech investor David Sacks, who was roped in to introduce the event, reportedly remarked that “the servers are melting”. When the former military officer-turned-politician finally managed to speak – about 20 minutes after the scheduled start – Mr Musk shut the initial Spaces event and started a new one. “That was insane, sorry,” said the Tesla billionaire. The buggy start to Mr DeSantis’s bid for the top job was dismissed by several Twitter users as a “disaster”. “Great start to his campaign!” said one sarcastic tweet. The second Spaces event kickstarted by Mr Musk, where Mr DeSantis read a short speech, seems to have attracted about 161,000 users, Twitter’s public-facing data revealed. Mr Sacks, however, claimed the number of attendees was one of the platform’s largest. He claimed that the glitches were an indication of people flooding Twitter, eager for Mr DeSantis’s entry into the presidential race. “We got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign,” Mr Sacks said in the first livestream. But this assessment was met with derision by former Twitter employee Earnest Wilkins, who helped produce the Twitter’s Spaces feature. “Lol this isn’t in the top 150 spaces by size in the history of the product,” he tweeted. Mr Sacks’s claim was also mocked by Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said her non-campaign-related Twitch stream of her playing Among Us in 2020 attracted more people. “There was so much enthusiasm for Governor DeSantis’ vision for our Great American Comeback that he literally busted up the internet,” tweeted Mr DeSantis’s press secretary, adding that the event raised “$1 million” for the the campaign in one hour. The Wednesday event, according to many users on the platform, is a reflection of how Twitter under Mr Musk is far from operating smoothly. “Holy f***ing shit, Ron DeSantis’s campaign launch crashed and burned faster than a Tesla,” said one tweet. Since the Tesla titan laid off nearly three-fourths of Twitter’s workforce after taking over the social media company, the platform has been mired with technical issues. Users have faced frequent outages and bugs that have surfaced frequently and inconvenienced them. Several users earlier this week flagged a bug that caused some of their deleted tweets from the past to resurface on their timelines and, weeks before that, many were unable to tweet with the platform mistakenly stating they went over “the daily limit for sending tweets”. In March, many users also reported problems with posting images and sharing external links, with the Tesla chief himself noting that the platform “is so brittle”. The embarrassing tech glitches in Mr Musk’s platform were mocked by Mr DeSantis’s rivals on both sides of the political spectrum. They have also likely become a source of embarrassment for the Tesla chief, who had previously proclaimed that he prefers “to stay out of politics”. Donald Trump, the current Republican frontrunner for president, gleefully dubbed the event Mr DeSantis’s “failure to launch”. Joe Biden’s official Twitter account also jumped in and tweeted a link to Mr Biden’s own fundraising page, saying, “This link works”. Mr DeSantis’s campaign launch was widely anticipated, with many Republicans viewing him as a contender against Mr Trump. His controversial policies as Florida governor, including moves to restrict transgender and abortion rights, and backing a law that restricts classroom instruction on race and racism, led to him amassing a following in the American far right. The NAACP and Equality Florida have issued travel advisories to the state, warning that it is no longer safe for Black people or for those from the LGBT+ community. Read More Ron DeSantis news – live: Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces crashes ruining Florida governor’s 2024 campaign launch Trump and DeSantis' rivalry intensifies as Florida governor formally enters 2024 presidential race Elon Musk complains about David Duke comparison during disastrous DeSantis 2024 launch event Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

China's leader Xi Jinping is to declare the Asian Games open at a lotus-shaped mega stadium in Hangzhou on Saturday.

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Iran has imposed curbs on the internet in the year since protests erupted over Mahsa Amini's death, forcing people to find other ways to run their businesses or...

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Dozens of popular Reddit communities have pledged to continue a blackout indefinitely after no resolution was reached over a pricing dispute. The protest was initially meant to last 48 hours, with moderators of the subreddit communities hoping the action would force Reddit’s chief executive to reconsider charges for third-party app developers. These charges have already forced the Apollo app to announce that it is shutting down, as they mean it will no longer be able to afford access to Reddit’s API (Application Programming Interface). Apollo is one of several platforms that Reddit members use to access the site, with several subreddits posting a message on Wednesday stating: “Reddit is killing third-party applications (and itself).” The continuation of the protest will impact millions of Reddit users, with more than 300 subreddits committing to staying dark. They include r/music, which has 32 million subscribers, and r/videos, which has around 26 million members. Unpaid volunteers who moderate the communities claim that Reddit admins have been removing moderators who support the protest in order to force the sub-Reddits to open. One moderator of r/gaming also claimed the defiant stance was a response to Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman claiming that the protest “will pass”. In an internal memo to staff this week, Mr Huffman reportedly referred to the blackout as “noise”, despite more than 8,000 communities initially taking part on Monday. “Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well,” he wrote, according to The Verge. “We absolutely must ship what we said we would. The only long term solution is improving our product, and in the short term we have a few upcoming critical mod tool launches we need to nail.” Mr Huffman also warned staff members to not wear the Reddit logo in public, in case it made them the “object of [users’] frustrations”. The CEO claimed that the site-wide protest had not resulted in “any significant revenue impact”, though this is unlikely to remain the case if widespread blackouts continue. Read More ‘This will pass’: Reddit boss responds to major chaos at site Reddit is in chaos – and it’s boss has finally responded Reddit down amid major protest Reddit just went ‘dark’, and the site is in chaos

PARIS Belgium's state secretary for digitalisation said on Friday he had asked Apple to upgrade the iPhone 12

Welcome to Money Diaries where we are tackling the ever-present taboo that is money. We’re asking real people how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we’re tracking every last dollar.

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