Since Twitter refused to pay its Google Cloud contract , they may face additional platform instability in the near future. Back in 2018, Twitter entered into a $1 billion contract with Google to utilize the company’s Google Cloud servers for hosting certain services. However, according to Platformer, Twitter has recently declined to make the payment to Google prior to the contract’s renewal date on June 30th.
According to reports, Twitter is in a rush to migrate numerous services away from Google’s infrastructure before the contract expires. However, the company is facing delays in this effort, which puts certain tools at risk of going offline, including Smyte. Twitter acquired Smyte in 2018 to enhance its moderation capabilities.
If Twitter can’t migrate the system to its own servers before the end of the month, Platformer suggests a shutdown would greatly impact the company’s ability to combat spam and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Before Saturday, Smyte had been already showing signs of strain, following Elon Musk’s deep cuts to Twitter’s workforce.
In December, Musk reportedly asked Twitter’s trust and safety team why the automated system hadn’t caught a Twitter Blue user who had been impersonating him to pump a crypto scam. The team told Musk the system had been unstable for a week, crashing “at least once a day.”
Hallmark of Twitter 2.0.
Platform instability has been a hallmark of Twitter 2.0. In February, many of the platform’s core features went down on more than one occasion. More recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had trouble announcing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination after Twitter Spaces could not handle the influx of people who wanted to listen to the broadcast.
If Twitter is in fact planning to stiff Google, it wouldn’t be the first time the company has ghosted on a contract. At the end of last year, California Property Trust, the owner of the building that houses Twitter headquarters, sued the company for failing to pay rent.