What is Twitter Spaces and why did it go so wrong during DeSantis’s 2024 launch?

At one point, the controversial Republican governor himself disappeared from the audio-only livestream

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.